Messiah

Isaiah’s Card

Isaiah’s Card on December 24, 2016

If Almighty God were himself to send Christmas cards, what might he write in his about the coming of his own Son to be born on earth as a human child of his human Mother? In fact God wrote many things about the Messiah through the writers whom he directly inspired to put together the books of the Old Testament, and of course one of the best-known of these quotes comes from the prophet Isaiah, Chapter IX. In the preceding Chapter Isaiah has been prophesying the desolation and ruin that will come upon the Jews for their sins. In IX he turns to the glory of the Messianic age: a great light will light up Galilee – v. 1,2. (Jesus’ home province). Then joy as at harvest-time or after a military victory will come(v.3), after the defeat of the Assyrians, as after Gideon’s defeat of the Madianites (v.4), and the features of war will disappear (v.5). Isaiah continues with the “Christmas card” (glorified in the music of Handel’s Messiah):

6: For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. 7: His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

6: Thus the supreme reason for joy is the coming of the Messiah: to us, to redeem all of us will be born a royal child and son, who will take the weight of the world upon his shoulder (the Church Fathers take this weight to be the Cross), and with a series of epithets Isaiah tells who the child will be: Wonderful, Counsellor, more than able to counsel all nations for their true happiness and prosperity down to the end of the world. God the Mighty – Talmudic Scripture scholars do their best to avoid admitting that Isaiah is saying that the Messiah will also be God (as Catholics know, Second Person of the Holy Trinity), but the definite article in the Hebrew and the meaning of the expression “God the Mighty” everywhere else in the Old Testament strongly indicate that Isaiah means exactly that. The Father of the world to come – the Messiah will be a true and tender Father for the messianic age, for ever and ever (cf. Mt. XI, 28).

7: His empire shall be multiplied – the Catholic Church will spread all over the world and there shall be no end of peace because the Messiah’s Church will generate peace wherever it is respected, until world’s end. He will be a royal descendant of David to sit upon the throne of David to which it was promised that it would last for ever (II Sam. VII), as Our Lord promised to his Church (Mt. XVI, 18; XXVIII, 20). But this kingdom will be a kingdom of the King of Hearts (Jn. XII, 32), strengthened with judgment and with justice, not a kingdom of the Knave of Clubs, established by force (Mt. XXVI, 52; Jn. XVIII, 36). All these marvels will come from the zeal of the Lord God, from his burning desire to bring souls to Heaven to share eternal and uninterrupted bliss with him, for ever and ever.

What makes it difficult for us today to appreciate Isaiah’s glorious vision of the messianic future is that it has turned into the masonic past. The fifth age of the Messiah’s Church, the Age of Apostasy, began 500 years ago when Luther broke up Christendom, so that when another 200 years later it was still not yet obvious for many men that the benefits of Christendom were well on the way to being undermined, Judeo-masons could begin to persuade men that Christendom, or Christ, was no longer necessary. And not even the horrors of another 200 years later of anti-Christian Communism, let loose by the Russian Revolution and spreading worldwide, could persuade men that from the Incarnation onwards, the alternatives for any civilisation are Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church, or the Devil. But it is true.

Happy Christmas, readers!

Kyrie eleison.

Moses Explains

Moses Explains on August 30, 2014

If any Catholic seeks an in-depth explanation of the on-going madness in Gaza, he should read Moses in the Old Testament. For instance, if the Israelites do not keep the commandments of God, they will be stricken with “madness and blindness and fury of mind” (Deut. XXVIII, 28), among many other curses. As Fr Meinvielle said, the Jews are a theological race, and they cannot escape their theological destiny – they are bound to God like no other people on earth.

In Deuteronomy Moses is giving to the Israelites their last solemn instructions before they enter the Promised Land, and before he dies. In Chapter 28 (parallelled by Levit. XXVI) Moses makes very clear the mind of Jehovah (or Yahweh), the God of the Old Testament, identical with the God of the New Testament: the Jews will be specially blessed (v.1–14) if they obey the one true God, they will be specially cursed (v. 15–68) if they disobey him. Either way, they are a special race being given a special knowledge of the one true God for a special mission that they must fulfil for him, with a special reward or punishment from him, depending on how they fulfil that mission.

No wonder Jews think they are special! Among the blessings listed here by Moses, God will raise them “higher than all nations” (v.1); “to be a holy people unto himself” (v.9); to be “the head and not the tail” (v.13). But in every one of these three verses it is noteworthy how Moses makes the Israelites’ superiority depend on their obedience to God: if they will “hear the voice of God and keep all his commandments” (v.1); if they “hear his commandments and walk in his ways” (v.9); if they will “hear the commandments of God and keep and do them” (v.13).

On the other hand if the Israelites try to be that superior nation on their own terms, disobeying God (v.15), then a multitude of curses will come upon them (v.16–68), and they will be scorned, hated and trampled upon by all other nations: they will be “scattered throughout all the kingdoms of the earth” (v.25); they will be stricken with “madness and blindness and fury of mind” (v.28 – think of Gaza!); the stranger with whom they live will “rise up over” them, he will be the head and they will be the tail (v.43–44); their enemy will put an “iron yoke” upon their neck (v.48); the Lord God will afflict them with all kinds of sufferings (v.59–61), and they will be “taken away from the land which they will go in to possess” (v.63). And all of this they will suffer because of not keeping and fulfilling the words of God’s law (v.58).

Alas, did all these blessings and curses announced by the great Moses avail to make the Israelites recognize and serve their Messiah and Incarnate God when he came, as also prophesied by Moses (Deut. XVIII, 15–18)? No, they crucified him instead, which has for now nearly 2000 years brought down on their heads all of Moses’ curses. They made themselves into the most despised and downtrodden nation on earth, and they lost their right to the Promised Land, being driven out and scattered everywhere else from the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Nor does their regaining possession of the Holy Land mean that the curse is being lifted, because they are doing it on their own terms and not on God’s, so that the very re-possession turns into part of the curse. As Plato said (Georgias), it is better to suffer than to commit an injustice, and therefore in spiritual reality, the Israelis are more to be pitied than the Palestinians. Patience. We “all have sinned and do need the glory of God” (Rom. III, 22–23).

Kyrie eleison.

Israelites, Israelis?

Israelites, Israelis? on August 9, 2014

Let us then grant (EC 368) that the orders of Almighty God to exterminate certain peoples in the Old Testament (e.g. I Sam. XV) were an act of justice and mercy towards the pagans themselves, and an act also designed to help the Israelites forward towards cradling the Incarnate God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, when he would come many centuries later. This cradle the Israelites did provide, especially through the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the entire human race owes a boundless debt of gratitude. If any of us does get to Heaven, it will be only through her intercession.

Then what connection can there be between those Jews through whom salvation comes (Jn. IV, 22) and the mass of Jews today, who are either massacring Palestine or supporting the massacre, morally or financially? The majority of today’s Jews being Ashkenazy Jews, they may well be no blood-descendants of Abraham, but be that as it may, they have certainly absorbed through the Talmud, the holy book of post-Christian Judaism, what Our Lord called “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Mt. XVI, 11), meaning the spirit of his bitter enemies who crucified him and have fought his Church ever since. How can his Chosen People have turned into some of his consistently worst enemies? (If the mere question seems “anti-semitic,” let it be recalled that truth is good while “anti-semitism” is bad, so nothing true can be “anti-semitic” and nothing “anti-semitic” can be true. What follows is the truth, and has nothing whatsoever to do with so-called “anti-semitism”).

Firstly, if the Chosen People turned against their God, the problem may seem chronological but it is not. Throughout the Old Testament there were Israelites who turned against God, for instance the worshippers of the Golden Calf or the Jews exiled to Babylon. God frequently had to punish his own “stiff-necked” and rebellious people. Likewise from the beginning of the New Testament down to our own day there have always been outstanding Jewish converts, like St Paul, who was as Jewish as could be (cf. Rom. IX, 1–5; II Cor. XI, 21–22; Phil. III, 4–6). The difference between Israelites and Israelis is the same difference as there has always been between those of any race who love God and those who rebel against him. The true “Judeo-Christian” line stretches from Abel through, for instance, Abraham, Moses, David and the Mother of God to the Catholic Church. The false “Judeo-Christian” but true “Judeo-Masonic” line stretches from the accursed Cain through, for instance, the killers of God’s prophets to Anas and Caiphas to modern Freemasonry, which was created by Jews and is still controlled by them for purposes of fighting the Catholic Church, even if many Masons are ignorant of the fact.

Well and good, but is not the contrast between Israelites and Israelis especially sharp? Yes, because as the old saying goes, “The higher they are, the harder they fall.” Once the Chosen People refused to be the special servants of God, as they have largely done from the Incarnation onwards, they were bound to become the special servants of the Devil. For them there could be nothing in between. And what was behind that refusal? In one word, pride. Instead of using God’s special gifts to them for his glory, they bent them to their own glory. Before their Messiah came, they misconceived him as their material instead of spiritual saviour, so that when he came they refused to recognize him, and from then on they fought him for having replaced their racially exclusive Mosaic religion with the racially all-inclusive Catholic religion, open to all races.

And what can Catholics do to resist the overwhelming material dominance of the once Chosen Ones all around us? Materially, next to nothing, but a single soul praying spiritually and sincerely for God’s kingdom to come and for his will to be done can prevail on God to move material mountains, child’s play for God. He only allows that dominance in order to drive us back to him.

Kyrie Eleison.

Virtuous Pagans

Virtuous Pagans on October 22, 2011

On reading (EC 221) how the music of Brahms is proof of a certain greatness of soul, a young Brazilian reader asks if the wick smouldering in Brahms was not smouldering better than it does in a lukewarm Catholic (cf. Mt.XII, 20). The contrast is designed to highlight the virtue of the pagan and to question the virtue of “warm, lazy” Catholics. Of course pagan virtue is praiseworthy and Catholic lukewarmness is blameworthy, but a greater question lies behind: just how important is it to be a believing Catholic? How important is the virtue of faith? The answer must remain, it is as important as eternity is long.

That faith is a virtue of supreme value is evident from the Gospels. How often does Our Lord, after working a miracle of physical or spiritual healing, tell the person involved that it is their faith that obtained for them the miracle, e.g. for Mary Magdalene (Lk.VII, 50). Yet Scripture makes it equally clear that this meritorious faith is something deeper than just an explicit knowledge of religion. For instance, Roman centurions can have known little to nothing of the true religion in its day, the Old Testament, yet of one of them Our Lord says he has not found so great faith in Israel (Mt.VIII, 10), another of them recognizes as the Son of God the crucified Jesus whom the experts in religion had done nothing but mock (Mt.XXVII, 41), while a third, Cornelius, blazes the trail for all Gentiles who will enter the true Church (Acts, X, XI). What did these pagan centurions have that the priests, scribes and ancients did not have, or no longer had?

From beginning to end of all men’s life on this earth, pagans and non-pagans alike are constantly confronted with a variety of things good, all coming ultimately from God, and of things evil, coming from the wickedness of men. But God himself is invisible while wicked men are all too visible, so it is all too easy to disbelieve in the goodness or even existence of God. However, men of good heart will believe in the goodness of life while discounting, relatively but not absolutely, the evil, whereas men bad of heart will discount the good that is all around them. Now neither may have any explicit knowledge of religion, but whereas good-hearted men, like the centurions, will pick up on it as soon as it crosses their path, the bad-hearted will scorn it, more or less. Thus the innocent Andrew and John picked up immediately on the Messiah (Jn.I,37–40), whereas the learned Gamaliel took rather more time and persuading (Acts V, 34–39). Let us say then that at the heart of the explicit and knowing virtue of faith lies an implicit trust in the goodness of life and in whatever Being lies behind it, a trust that can be undermined by false doctrine or shaken for instance by scandal.

If we return to the case of Brahms, the question then becomes, did he have at least this implicit trust in the goodness of life and of the Being behind it? Surely the answer is no, because he spent the whole second half of his life in what was then the capital city of music, Catholic Vienna. There the beauty of his music must have led numerous friends and even priests to urge upon him the explicit fulfilment of that beauty in the profession and practice of Vienna’s religion, but all such appeals he must have refused. Therefore it seems all too possible that he did not save his soul . . . God knows.

Nonetheless we thank God for his music. As St Augustine marvellously said, “All truth belongs to us Catholics.” Likewise all beauty, even if crafted by pagans!

Kyrie eleison.

Ancestral Pride

Ancestral Pride on October 15, 2011

In his second volume on the life of Jesus published several months ago, Pope Benedict XVI made remarks enabling journalists to jump to the conclusion that the Jews must no longer be held responsible for deicide, i.e. the killing of God. Worse, on May 17 the executive director of the US Bishops’ Conference’s Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs said that one cannot charge the Jewish people with deicide at any time in history without falling out of communion with the Catholic Church. Against what many people today want to believe, it is time to recall, however briefly, what the true Church always used to teach on the judicial murder of Jesus.

Firstly, the killing of Jesus was truly “deicide,” i.e. the killing of God, because Jesus was the one of the three divine Persons who in addition to his divine nature had taken a human nature. What was killed on the Cross? Only the human nature. But who was killed on the Cross in his human nature? None other than the second divine Person, i.e. God. So God was killed, deicide was committed.

Secondly, Jesus died on the Cross to save all of us sinful human beings from our sins, and in this sense all men were and are the purpose of his death. But only the Jews (leaders and people) were the prime agents of the deicide because it is obvious from the Gospels that the Gentile most involved, Pontius Pilate, would never have condemned Jesus to death had not the Jewish leaders roused the Jewish people to clamour for his crucifixion (Mt. XXVII, 20). Certainly the learned leaders were more guilty than the unlearned people, says St Thomas Aquinas (Summa III, 47, 5), but they all cried together for Jesus’ blood to come down upon them and their children (Mt. XXVII, 25).

Thirdly, at least Pope Leo XIII considered there to be a real solidarity between the Jews clamouring then for Jesus to be killed and the collectivity of Jews of modern times. Did he not in his Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus have the entire Church, from the end of the 19th century onwards, pray to God that he turn his “eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once God’s chosen people: of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Saviour; may it now descend upon them a laver (i.e. washing) of redemption and life”?

But Leo XIII is by no means alone in observing such a continuity amongst Jews down the centuries. Do they themselves not lay claim today to the land of Palestine on the grounds that it is theirs by right from the God of the Old Testament? Has there ever been a race-people-nation on the face of the earth more proudly self-identifying as identical down the ages? Originally raised by God to cradle the Messiah, alas, when he came they refused, collectively, to recognize him. Collectively also, meaning there are always noble exceptions, they have remained faithful to that rejection, so that they changed their religion from that of Abraham and Moses and the Old Testament to that of Anas, Caiphas and the Talmud. Tragically, their very messianic training by God drives them to go on rejecting the one whom they hold to be a false messiah. Until they convert at the end of the world, as the Church has always taught they will do (cf. Rom. XI, 26–27), they seem bound to choose to go on acting, collectively, as enemies of the true Messiah. How can the Pope let go of such ancient truths?

Kyrie eleison.