parents

Few Elect?

Few Elect? on January 22, 2011

Why is it so seemingly difficult to save one’s soul? Why – as we are told – are relatively few souls saved in comparison with the number of souls damned? Since God wishes for all souls to be saved (I Tim.II, 4), why did he not make it somewhat easier, as he surely could have done?

The swift and simple answer is that it is not that difficult to save one’s soul. Part of the agony of souls in Hell is their clear knowledge of how easily they could have avoided damnation. Damned non-Catholics might say, “I knew there was something to Catholicism, but I chose never to go into the question because I could see ahead that I would have to change my way of life.” (Winston Churchill once said that every man runs into the truth at some time in his life, but most men turn the other way.) Damned Catholics might say, “God gave me the Faith, and I knew that all I needed was to make a good confession, but I reckoned it was more convenient to put it off, and so I died in my sins . . .” Every soul in Hell knows that it is there by its own fault, by its own choice. God is not to be blamed. In fact looking back on their lives on earth, they see clearly how much he did to try to stop them from throwing themselves into Hell, but they freely chose their own fate, and God respected that choice . . . However, let us delve a little deeper.

Being infinitely good, infinitely generous and infinitely happy, God chose – he was in no way obliged – to create beings that would be capable of sharing in his happiness. Since he is pure spirit (Jn. IV, 24), such beings would have to be spiritual and not just material, such as animal, vegetable or mineral. Hence the creation of angels with no matter in them at all, and men, with a spiritual soul in a material body. But that very spirit by which angels and men are capable of sharing in divine happiness necessarily includes reason and free-will, indeed it is by the free-will freely choosing God that it deserves to share in his happiness. But how could that choice of God be truly free if there was no alternative to choose that would turn away from God? What merit does a boy have in choosing to buy a volume of Shakespeare if there is only Shakespeare for sale in the bookstore? And if the bad alternative exists, and if the free-will is real and not just a pretence, how are there not going to be angels or men who will choose what is not good?

The question may still be asked, how can God have foreseen to allow the majority of souls (Mt.VII, 13–14; XX, 16) to incur the terrible punishment of refusing his love? Answer, the more terrible Hell is, the more certain it is that to every man alive God offers grace and light and strength enough to avoid it, but, as St Thomas Aquinas explains, the majority of men prefer the present and known joys of the senses to the future and unknown joys of Paradise. Then why did God attach such strong pleasures to the senses? Partly no doubt to ensure that parents would have children to populate his Heaven, but also surely to make all the more meritorious any human being’s putting the pursuit of pleasure in this life beneath the true delights of the next life, which are ours for the wanting! We need only want them violently enough (Mt.XI, 12)!

God is no mediocre God, and to souls loving him he wishes to offer no mediocre Paradise.

Kyrie eleison.

Wasteland Remedies – II

Wasteland Remedies – II on August 14, 2010

Why are modern ‘universities’ veritable dustbins or trash-cans of ‘democracy’? Because in a ‘democracy’ everybody must be equal, nobody may appear to be superior. But having a Degree makes someone superior. So everybody must have a Degree. But by no means all boys have the brains or bookishness to obtain a Degree. Therefore ‘universities’ will have to be dumbed down, and ‘Degrees’ extended to all kinds of dumb subjects, until every boy can get a ‘Degree,’ even if it will hardly be worth the paper it is written on. Today’s ‘university’ system is “totally bogus,” says an American friend and Professor, who knows it from the inside.

What is at the root of this modern stupidity? Once again, godlessness. All souls are absolutely equal before God, for eternity, before his judgment seat at death, which is all that matters, but they are in all respects unequal before men, for this short life, in human society. This is because God gives out his gifts very unequally, so that all men will be interdependent and have to look after one another. Accordingly a merely human ‘Degree’ as such makes anybody superior not before God, but only before foolish men who leave God out of account. Parents who take God into account will therefore discount ‘democracy,’ ‘equality,’ ‘universities’ and ‘Degrees’.

Their prime concern will be to form their boys in reality, so that they can get to the real Heaven of the real God, paying little attention to the unreality of a world falling in ruins all around them. First question for parents: what gifts did God give to this boy of ours, quite different even from our other boys? What does he incline to? God’s gifts to him will point to God’s will for him. Obviously more boys are gifted for hands-on work than for books. Moreover G.K.Chesterton once interestingly said that to seek mastery in any material domain, e.g. wood or metal, is an apprenticeship in reality. Then by all means let a boy go to a technical college and learn a real skill to become, for instance, a good carpenter or plumber or electrician or mechanic. Or has the boy an uncle with a farm? Send him there. Handling animals is a major school in reality!

To learn that reality let him shun a ‘Degree’. Today’s employers may still be requiring a ‘Degree,’ but tomorrow’s will soon be saying, “You spent three years wasting your parents’ money or running up a heavy debt, just to learn how to drink and throw frisbees and fool around with the girls? You don’t interest me!” On the contrary, if in addition to a practical skill a boy has learned at home honesty and hard work, he will be able to make more than just an honest living. His services will be much in demand in a world collapsing in the ruin of unreal values.

As for girls, let them learn the home realities of all time, like sewing, cooking, canning, music, the arts, in brief everything that lends delight to home life, but especially cooking. The world may fall in ruins, it may do whatever it likes, but the way to a man’s heart will still be going through his stomach. It is a man speaking!

Kyrie eleison.

Embattled Boys

Embattled Boys on May 29, 2010

EC 146 told of the difficulty that teaching Sisters have with today’s girls. EC 147 traced the problem back to the home.Now, some of you ask, what about the boys? Catholics know that boys and girls, as to the saving of their souls for the next life, are equal, so both must be prepared alike, first and foremost, to get to Heaven. But about there the likeness ends. God has appointed man and woman for quite different roles in this life, which is why the Church has always condemned co-education. Then what do boys specifically need?

As woman has gifts of heart to look after home and children, so man has gifts of reason to lead them and provide for them by, ever since original sin, “the sweat of his brow” (Gen. III, 19). Therefore while a girl’s formation must centre around what will serve husband and children inside the home, a boy’s formation should train him for (1) work and (2) responsibility outside the home, which will usually mean, in the big bad world. There he is going to need (3) judgment, (4) self-discipline and (5) manliness. We already have quite a programme!

In this programme, the example given to a boy by his father is all-important! Parents of today, you must have been yourselves formed 20 to 30 years ago, well after the revolutionary 1960’s. Do all of you realize what that means? Do have the humility to recognize that your own formation, in school and/or home, most likely ill prepared you to raise children so to live as to get to Heaven. Fathers, set about correcting your own indolence, irresponsibility, silliness, self-indulgence and unmanliness, and you will be doing the very best you can for your boys!

WORK outside in nature is the best. Let a boy swing an axe, cut down a tree, plant a garden, ride a horse, build a shed. Sport at best is manly recreation, but it is not meant to be any more than recreation. A genuine need of the family best teaches RESPONSIBILITY, also taught by a boy’s suffering from the consequences of his own mistakes, instead of being protected from them. JUDGMENT he will learn by being encouraged to use his mind, by discussions at the family table, by the company and instruction of his father whom he naturally hero-worships and follows, but who must take time to listen to his boy and counsel him, especially in adolescence. DISCIPLINE he will learn by getting up early in the morning, by a daily routine to which he sticks, by getting early to bed, and by not dating until, more or less, he is looking to marry. The less he gives to girls he will not marry, the more he will have to give to the girl he will marry. MANLINESS will be the reward for following out such a programme.

Finally, parents, notice how electronics as a rule make a boy 1 idle, 2 irresponsible, 3 silly, 4 soft and 5 frustrated.

Cast out of the home electronics’ spell,

If your boys are not to drop into Hell!

Kyrie eleison.

Restoring Fatherhood

Restoring Fatherhood on May 22, 2010

It is easy to blame parents today for not knowing how to raise their children. It will be more useful to help all of them wishing to be helped to see where the problem of their estranged children is coming from. The problem is, in a way, as majestic as God, because it comes from the modern world’s wholesale refusal and denial of God.

The human family is a small society, consisting basically of father, mother and children. Now common sense tells us that every human society needs a head to be able to function. If no head directs or commands, the society loses its direction and falls apart. A football team needs a captain, a corporation needs a chief executive officer, a country needs a king or president, a town needs a mayor, a fire brigade needs a chief, an army needs a general, a university needs a rector, a court needs a judge, and so on, and so on.

Above all, a family needs a father, because the human family is not only a human society, it is the most basic and natural of human societies, in fact it is the basic model for all other societies. This is because in no other society can the bonds which tie the members together be so deep or natural as the bonds which tie husband to wife and parents to children. Also in no other society is it so clear how the head must both command and care for the members. If a father commands without caring, the family suffers from his harshness. If he cares without commanding – rather more often the case today – it suffers from his softness. Thus family fatherhood is the model for all human authority. That is why (cf. EC 145) the Fourth Commandment to honour father and mother stands at the head of the seven Commandments governing relations in human society.

Now family fatherhood, like all fatherhood or authority, derives from God the Father. St Paul says, “I bow my knees to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all fatherhood is named” (Eph. III, 14,15). In other words, says the Word of God, from the fatherhood of God the Father all fatherhood in the human family, all headship in any human society, derives its nature, because the “name,” or word, signifies the nature or thing. Then it stands to reason that in any world which kicks out God the Father, as our world is now doing, the name and nature of fatherhood will be drained out of our minds, and all fatherhood and all authority will be emptied out of our lives.

Family fathers, lead your families to God! Put yourselves under him, and your wives and children will put themselves that much more easily under you. “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God,” says St Paul (I Cor. XI, 3). Give to wife and children the example of a manly piety, as natural as it is “supernatural,” and whatever our mad world may get up to for its part, you at least will be doing the best you can for the family that God has entrusted to you.

Specifics for boys will follow in another “Eleison Comments,” if God wills.

Kyrie eleison.

Sleepless Pope

Sleepless Pope on May 15, 2010

Conciliar Rome’s radical misunderstanding of what the Catholic Traditional movement is all about, was illustrated once more in Paris last Wednesday when Cardinal Kasper, head of the Vatican department for relations with other Christian churches and with Jews, gave a press conference. From the Reuters report let me quote as faithfully as possible what the Cardinal thinks, summed up in five propositions, and then comment.

1) The doctrinal discussions presently taking place every two months between four theologians of Rome, and a bishop and three priests of the Society of St Pius X, are not proving easy. 2) The main problem is the concept of tradition. “Do we want a living tradition or a petrified tradition?” asked the Cardinal. 3) He said he is for this dialogue with the SSPX, but it has to be on Rome’s conditions and not on those of the SSPX. 4) If an agreement is to be reached, the SSPX will have to make concessions, and it will have to accept the Conciliar reforms. 5) Without an agreement the SSPX will have no official status, its priests will not be recognized as Catholic priests, nor will they be allowed to exercise their ministry.

(1) Of course it is not proving easy to reconcile 2+2=4 (Tradition and the SSPX) with 2+2=4 or

5 (Vatican II and Conciliar Rome). We are in the presence of two profoundly different

conceptions of arithmetic, of two just as profoundly different conceptions of Catholic Truth.

(2) 2+2=4 is truth, unchanging and unchangeable, therefore “traditional.” 2+2=4 or 5 is a brand

new arithmetic, as “living” as one likes, but utterly unreal, and so not traditional at all.

(3) If one is discussing true arithmetic, it will be on true arithmetic’s terms and not on the terms

of either party discussing, even if one of the parties takes its stand on those terms.

(4) Who wants, or needs, to arrive at an agreement that 2+2=4 or 5 (Vatican II)? Only

merchants of fantasy who no longer care for true arithmetic!

(5) If “official status,” “recognition as priests” and “being permitted to minister” all depend on

accepting that 2+2 can be 4 or 5, then all such “status,” “recognition” and “permission” are

being bought at the price of Truth. But if I sell off the Truth, how can I still have it to tell it?

And if I can no longer tell the Truth, what kind of a priest can I be, with what kind of a ministry?

Therefore in conclusion, it is not just on “tradition” but on the very nature of truth that these Romans and the SSPX part company. Changing truth, these Romans have lost the Truth, in fact they are, at least objectively speaking, murdering it, as Macbeth “doth murder sleep” (II,2). Indeed in the same Reuters article the Pope is quoted as having said that the SSPX problem “robs him of his sleep.” Holy Father, do believe that the Truth is far above the SSPX, which is no more than one of its tiny momentary defenders. Every one of us in the SSPX wishes you all kinds of well, especially to sleep well. It is not the SSPX, but murdered Truth, which is keeping you awake at night.

Kyrie eleison.

Embattled Parents

Embattled Parents on May 8, 2010

Sister’s words from last week’s “Eleison Comments” remain in my mind: “The world has a tight grip on our girls.” Over a mere three years “the change of their mentality is noticeable. We struggle to maintain principles and morality.” Now the world is hardly going to ease off its pressure on the girls, on the contrary. Then either our Catholic Faith has ceased to be “our victory over the world” (I Jn.V,4), or Sister’s words may be a red light flashing to warn us all that our Faith needs to be activated, or Catholic Tradition may need to be sifted again?

For between home and school, if school is responsible for, say, two-sevenths of a child’s formation, home is responsible for at least five-sevenths. That is why, as was suggested here last week, it is a grave error for parents to think that if they have entrusted their child to a good school, their duty is done. The main responsibility for children’s formation has always belonged in the home. Sister would certainly not shuck off onto the home what is her own responsibility, but on the other hand her main hope, after the mercy of God, must be good homes.

Now nobody reasonable can today not have compassion on parents. For instance, father is liable to be run ragged by commuting, by unsatisfying work, by an anti-catholic work-place, while mother is liable to be exhausted by the series of children God can send if she and her husband are to obey the laws of Catholic marriage, by schooling them at home if outside schools are too corrupt, by work outside the home as well as inside if an incorrupt school outside is expensive, and by people’s scorn if she stays at home. In any such worst case scenario, God expects of none of us to do the impossible. But he does expect us to carry our Cross, and to do the possible.

Fathers, are you acting as the manly – not tyrannical! – head of the family? Do you put family before money, or money before family? Are you giving your girls the example of loving and supporting their mother? Do you listen to her? Are you encouraging her to dress or behave for your own pleasure in such a way as can only give to your daughters bad example? They will do much more what she does than what she says. Do you take time with your girls? Do you give them that wise attention and care which they so much need from their father? Mothers, only one question: do you give to your girls the example of respecting and obeying their father (even if he may not always deserve it), or do you use your tongue to make him small in front of them? Do both of you give to them an example of respect for the priest?

One last question for fathers and mothers: have you ever listened to those Catholic parents of children around the time of Vatican II who were asleep at the switch of their children’s formation, woke up too late and have now nothing but tears to shed for their children living, and being prepared to die, outside the Faith? Throw out that TV set! Fellow-priests and Sisters, let us not be afraid of making ourselves unpopular! And let us all beware of our Catholic Tradition becoming so cosy that for our own good the Lord God must let us do a re-run of Vatican II!

Kyrie eleison.