Tag: Divine Providence

World Transformed

World Transformed posted in Eleison Comments on March 28, 2020

Two events are shaking the world, the corona-virus and the breakdown of what has been the world’s financial system for, maybe, the last two centuries. The two events may well be connected. Several commentators are actually mentioning Almighty God, at least in connection with the worldwide spread of the corona-virus, because that spread is like a plague, and in times past when there was no other remedy, plagues would often make men turn to God. But that God – who has not changed – is almost certainly playing a more important part in both events today than most people think.

Is that to say that God caused the worldwide corona-virus infection? Indirectly, yes, because He foresaw it from eternity and decided to let it happen. And what greater good might His permission for the infection be bringing about? We have seen the governments of many countries impose such restrictions on movements of their citizens that these countries are virtually brought to a halt. That is giving to the citizens a serious chance firstly to realise how fragile is the functioning of their much vaunted modern way of life: neither is it so robust, nor are they such champions of reality, as they may have thought. And secondly, by the serious interruption of their normal rat-race they are being given time and opportunity they would never normally have to reflect on that rat-race: Who am I? What is my life? What am I doing with it? Where am I going? Alas, many modern citizens thus providentially slowed down will only want to speed up again so as to distract themselves from thoughts that evoke anything higher than their all-engrossing rat-race . . .

Another reason why God may not directly have caused the corona-virus is the amount of serious speculation that the virus comes not from God’s Nature but from men’s laboratories, where viruses of Nature are made artificially much more harmful and contagious in order to serve as potential weapons of war. And if that is where the corona-virus came from, who can men blame for it except other men?

And then there is not only the fabrication of the virus but also its release – how did it escape from the laboratories to threaten mankind? Was the escape an accident, or was it a deliberate release? Again, there is much speculation that it was not an accident, but criminally timed to coincide with the crashing of the world’s financial system, also engineered. The virus would help the crash in two ways: firstly it would, however briefly, bring to a halt a significant part of the functioning of the world’s economies, forcing bankruptcies and a widespread increase of indebtedness and enslavement to the global Money Power; and secondly, an exaggerated panic over the virus in the same globalists’ media would serve to distract mankind from its enslavement taking an important step forwards. Certainly if the financial crash was deliberate, the coincidence of the virus was a windfall for whoever was behind the crash.

And so was, or is, anybody behind the March crash of the world’s stock markets, which is by no means over? Of course there was. The Money Power, controlling the governments with which it works, has so much money at its disposal that it can swing at will supposedly free stock markets, up or down. Such crashes as of this March are designed to cause a great transfer of wealth from little investors to the Money Power. In this case it created from 1987 a 33-year rising market to lure them in, and once they were well in, it crashed the market to strip them of their assets while it has itself bet on the falling market and made a fortune. And the governments protect the Money Power because it bought them off long ago.

And Almighty God? “My children, if you insist on worshipping Mammon and materialism instead of Me, this is what will happen to you. You have scorned My religion to replace it with politics. You have worshipped your governments instead of your God. You have believed in money instead of charity towards your fellow-men. Are you now surprised that governments, politics and money let you down? Or are you hurt that I let them let you down? Children, I am offering you Paradise, and for all eternity!”

Kyrie eleison.

Continuing Damage – II

Continuing Damage – II posted in Eleison Comments on August 3, 2013

Besides arguing that the Doctrinal Declaration of mid-April last year was refused by Rome and so is of no further interest, people claiming that there has been no significant change in the Society of St Pius X also resort to the three bishops’ recent Declaration of June 27, which was obviously designed to reassure people that the SSPX lifeboat is undamaged and still perfectly seaworthy. However, souls wishing not to drown need to take a closer look.

It is the 11th paragraph which has become notorious. In brief, the bishops here state that they intend in the future to follow Providence, whether Rome soon returns to Tradition, or it recognizes explicitly the right and duty of the SSPX to oppose in public the Conciliar errors. Now this “whether” clause is out of the question because nothing short of a divine intervention is going to make the enemies of God, firmly established within the Vatican, let go of their Council. We come to the “or” clause. What can the bishops have meant by Rome “explicitly recognizing” the “right and duty” of the SSPX to oppose the Council?

The obvious meaning is that Rome would grant to the SSPX some official status within the mainstream Church, or some form of canonical regularisation. Some such recognition is obviously what the SSPX leaders have been striving for ever since they adopted the ideas of the Parisian think-tank, GREC, well over ten years ago. But when those leaders in April of last year largely accepted Rome’s terms for such a recognition, they created such a storm of protest within the SSPX that they were forced to pretend that they no longer want any such recognition based on the mid-April terms. Then what can the “or” clause of June 27 mean?

Within a few days the French District Superior put to them exactly that question. He was told that the “or” clause does not necessarily entail any official recognition, but merely the eventuality of a weak but Catholic Pope being on the one hand Catholic enough to recognize the SSPX’s “right and duty,” etc., but on the other hand too weak and isolated within Rome to be able to impose on the Romans any official recognition, etc. And the District Superior at least appeared to be content with this answer when he immediately transmitted it to the priests of his District.

Well, knock me over with a feather! Firstly, who, just reading the text of June 27, could ever have guessed that this was what the bishops had in mind? And secondly, what in the text of June 27 excludes a range of other possibilities that the bishops would accept in the name of “following Providence”? Given that on June 17, 2012, Bishop Fellay wrote to Benedict XVI that he would continue to do all he could to pursue a reconciliation between Rome and the SSPX, what in the text of June 27 excludes the cunning Romans eventually making to the bishops such an offer of reconciliation that – always in the name of “Providence” – they could not refuse?

Good luck to anyone who accepts the interpretation of the “or” clause given to the French District Superior. However, there are many of us who will remain unconvinced that the leadership of the SSPX has given up on its mad dream of reconciling irreconcilables. Until clear proof to the contrary, we will assume that those leaders remain, however unwittingly, intent upon turning the SSPX lifeboat into a deathboat. And when everyone drowns, they will make it all the ocean’s fault!

Kyrie eleison.

And Now?

And Now? posted in Eleison Comments on November 3, 2012

Last week’s news of the expulsion of one of the four bishops of the Society of St Pius X brought in a large number of e-mails of support and encouragement. To every one of you, many thanks. Such a serious division amongst the Society’s bishops is a great shame, but God has his reasons for allowing it to happen, and it is obvious that a number of you understand that the Faith comes before unity. Not division, but loss of Faith is the ultimate evil (I Cor.XI, 19; I Jn.II, 19). As to how the titanic war between the friends and enemies of that Faith will develop, I myself can see at this moment only the broad lines. Let me resort to three favourite quotations of Archbishop Lefebvre, which I think still apply today.

Firstly, “We must follow Providence, and not try to lead it.” If it is true that “Charity hopes all things” (I Cor. XIII, 7), then the Society may be given a little time yet to right itself before it is written off as one more Traditional group gone over to the enemy. That is why I said last week that SSPX priests might lie low for the moment to watch how things develop, while the laity might continue to attend Society Masses, but both must watch out (Mt. XXVI, 41) for contradictions in doctrine, for slackening in morals. The temptation will be to prefer comfort and routine over hardship and upheaval, as did thousands of priests and millions of layfolk after Vatican II, so that they ended up by losing the Faith. We are entitled to wait for Providence to show us which way is the way forward. We are not entitled to lose the Faith.

Secondly, “Time respects nothing done without it.” In other words, it takes time to build something solid. We may be in a hurry. God is not. The Archbishop took his time to build the Society. Vatican II concluded its devilry in 1965. Only 11 years later did the first large batch of priests come out of the Archbishop’s first seminary. Patience. He had not rushed.

Thirdly, “Good is not noisy and noise is not good.” The public domain today is thoroughly poisoned. To try to reach a large audience of modern men is to lay oneself wide open to the risk of the tail wagging the dog, of the audience bending the message, and the messenger, to suit its own corruption. The archbishop rarely went after the media, but they were always after him, because his message was unbending, and that was proof that “Our faith is our victory over the world” (I Jn.V, 4), and not our making noise on the public scene.

In brief, I think that the situation of today’s Catholic Resistance calls for no hurried action, but for a thoughtful measuring of men and events until the will of God becomes more clear. I think – I may be wrong – that he wants a loose network of independent pockets of Resistance, gathered around the Mass, freely contacting one another, but with no structure of false obedience such as served to sink the mainstream Church in the 1960’s, and is now sinking the Society of St Pius X. If you agree, by all means make contributions to the St Marcel Initiative because they will certainly come in useful, maybe sooner than I think. For myself, as soon as my situation stabilizes in England, I am ready to put my bishop’s powers at the disposal of whoever can make wise use of them.

In the USA paper checks can be made out to St Marcel Initiative and mailed to St Marcel Initiative, P.O.Box 764, Carrollton, VA 23314, USA. Contributions by credit card or debit card or direct debit / bank wire may be made at www.stmarcelinitiative.com. For paper check contributions from the U.K. and the Eurozone, details as to where they may be sent will be provided as soon as possible.

Kyrie eleison.

Flowers Teach

Flowers Teach posted in Eleison Comments on June 23, 2012

If flowers speak (cf. EC 255), then they can also teach: the value of time, the justice of God, the harmony of grace and nature.

For instance, if God exists and he is not unjust by making a soul’s whole eternity depend upon its choices made during one brief life, even lasting 90 years, then it stands to reason both that every moment of that life counts, and that in every moment (even if not always with the same force) God is appealing to us to join him for eternity. That is why it makes sense that he should be talking through the flowers and through every other gift of his creation, because what soul alive can truthfully say that it has nothing and nobody to love? Even the most rabid “atheist” has, say, his dog or his cigarettes. And Who designed dogs and tobacco plants, and kept them reproducing down to our own day?

So just before he dies the “atheist” may still claim that he at least was never spoken to by God, but in the instant after he dies he will grasp in a flash that for every moment of his waking life God has been appealing to him through some creature or other around him. “Am I now unjust,” God might ask him, “if I condemn you for every remaining moment of my life, when for every moment of your life you have been refusing me? Have what you have chosen. Depart from me into . . .” (Mt. XXV, 41).

Conversely, take a soul that has profited by every moment of its life to love the great and good God behind all the good things it has enjoyed, and that has even recognized the permission of his Providence behind all the bad things it has not enjoyed. Then who needs to be recognized, or famous, who needs to appear in the media, or to fill drawers of vacation photographs, in order to give meaning to his life? Small wonder that in past ages talented souls could bury their talents in a cloister or monastery in order to devote them wholly to the loving of God. For indeed every moment of our time is of measureless value, because upon every moment hangs for good or ill a measureless eternity.

Moreover, that flowers speak can help us to make sense of another well-known problem: how can non-Catholic souls be condemned for not having the Catholic faith when Catholic missionaries never reached them? Whatever mystery is here may at least partly be solved, humanly speaking, if one recalls that it is the selfsame God who creates flowers and instituted the Catholic Church. Thus if God’s Providence never allowed for Catholic truth to reach the ears of a given soul, nevertheless that soul will not be able to plead that it knew nothing of the true God, and it can be judged on what it did know, for instance the beauty of cloudscapes, of sunrises and sunsets. Did it, beholding them, say with the pagan Job (Job XIX, 25), “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” or did it say, “Well, yes, that’s nice, but now let me visit my neighbour’s wife . . .”?

In fact a number of complaints that men have today against their Creator arise even with Catholics, because many Catholics are, like everybody else today, more or less cut off from Nature by their urban or suburban lives, and their “spirituality” becomes correspondingly artificial. “Woe to anybody who has never loved an animal,” somebody has said. Children are close to God. Watch how naturally children love animals.

Great and good God, grant us to see you where you are, deep down everything and everybody, at every moment.

Kyrie eleison.

More Cheerful

More Cheerful posted in Eleison Comments on January 28, 2012

Your Excellency, please tell us something more cheerful!

God exists. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-just, but his mercy is also boundless. He is in perfect control of all that is happening in the world. Neither the Devil nor his human servants, including the criminals now running the world, can lift a finger without his permission. He knows every detail of their diabolical plans and is using every single one of them to fulfil his own Providential design.

But how then can he be allowing so much evil in our world? Because while he never wants evil, he wants to allow it, so as to bring out of it a greater good. Many prophecies indicate that out of today’s global corruption will arise tomorrow the greatest triumph ever of the Catholic Church, e.g. Our Lady of Fatima; “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” What is happening right now is that Our Lord is using his enemies to purify his Church.

But could he not have found a less unpleasant way of purifying his Church than for us to have us go through today’s unbelievable corruption? If it depended only on him, undoubtedly he could have found other ways of purifying his Church, but if you and I knew all that he knows – foolish thought! – and if above all you and I wanted, as he does, to respect the free-will that he gives to all human beings, then there is every likelihood that you and I would see that the way he is choosing to do things is the best.

And just what does man’s free-will have to do with it?

God does not want robots or merely irrational animals to share with him in his bliss. Now even he cannot give to his creatures a deserved happiness which they have done nothing to deserve, because that is contradictory and his power is over all being, not over non-being such as things contradictory. But if creatures are at least in part to deserve his bliss, then he must give them free-will, which if it is to be for real, must be able to choose the opposite of what he wants for it, and if it is really able to choose evil, then that is what will happen, more or less often.

But you say that the true Church follows Our Lord in teaching that narrow is the path to Heaven and few there be that find it (Mt.VII, 14). How can it be worth God’s while to have created, just today for instance, a mass of human beings, if only relatively few reach Heaven? How can so many falling into the horrors of Hell not be too high a price to pay for the relatively few reaching Heaven? Because God works in quality, not in quantity. That a mere ten men could have saved from his wrath the whole city of Sodom (Gen. XVIII, 32) proves how precious to God is one single soul responding to his love, over a large number that by their own free choice do not want his love. “I would have gone through the whole Passion just for you,” said Our Lord once to a soul. He would say it to any soul.

Do you mean that if, when the world worries and torments me, I merely stick all the more closely to God, then he takes account of it, for me and for those around me? I might almost want the world to be still worse! Now you are getting the idea!

Kyrie eleison.

New Year

New Year posted in Eleison Comments on December 31, 2011

And so another year closes out without the sky having fallen in. I have for decades been saying that it is falling in, for instance to a little group of people in France some five or seven years ago. Amongst them was an SSPX priest who had been a seminarian in Econe when I was a professor there in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s. “Your Excellency,” he said, “Weren’t you saying that 25 years ago?” But he said it with a smile, so he may have thought that one day I could be right.

Then will 2012 be the year when the sky falls in? Plenty of worldly commentators think that it could well be the year in which the world economy implodes. Certainly debt cannot keep on piling up the way it has been piling up for decades. For instance welfare entitlements are an unbearable burden on the budget of many a Western democracy, but almost by definition a democratic politician is incapable of taking the severe decisions necessary to restore fiscal sanity, because if he wants to be re-elected he cannot touch them. It has been well said that a democracy can last for only as long as the people do not realize that the cash till belongs to them.

Then is 2012 the year in which the Western democracies finally crash? Maybe. But maybe not. Many people today have a sense of some disaster looming. Surely it cannot take yet another 30 years to arrive, one says. But one has been saying that now for many years. Perhaps people are so drunk on liberalism that ever increasing doses of chaos leave them unconcerned. Nevertheless while the wheels of God grind slowly, says the proverb, they do grind exceeding small. In other words all of God’s bills have to be paid, and the day of reckoning will come, and on accounts far more serious than those of mere welfare entitlements.

This year, next year, some time, never? Certainly not never. It will come in God’s good time. The year is relatively unimportant. As Hamlet says (Act V, 2), “There is a providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.” There is a Providence. There is a God, and his timing is the best of all. “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit,” says the German proverb.

Nor does God require of easily most of us to undertake action to attempt to hold back Church and world on their present course to destruction. I am willing to bet that many of the world’s public leaders feel in private helpless to do anything, and I wonder if even the world’s secret controllers, hell-bent on world domination, feel at all times confident that they have their game in hand. “Only I can help you now,” the Mother of God has said.

What God does require of us is to live in his grace and to trust him. When the crash comes, in 2012 or whenever, from a human point of view it will no doubt be rather unpleasant, but from God’s point of view his chastisements are acts of mercy. St. Paul quotes Proverbs (III, 11–12): “My son, reject not the correction of the Lord, and do not faint when thou art chastised by him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth.” And St Paul goes on (Heb.XII, 7–8): “Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons. For what son is there whom the father doth not correct? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.”

The Catholic readiness is all, as of the wise virgins (Mt.XXV, 13). Happy New Year.

Kyrie eleison.