Our Lady's First Fatima Message (I): Life of penance in union with the Crucified

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JMJ

Feast of St. Venantius

Martyr at the age of fifteen

We often read "Penance! Penance! Penance!" among those who promote also the Messages of the heavenly Queen in Her apparitions at Fatima in Portugal. Yes, Our Blessed Mother calls souls to a life penitential sacrifice (as Her divine Son did at the beginning of His redemptive ministry), cf., "First Fatima Message...," but what is a Christian life of penitential sacrifice without its very source - the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (cf., "'My Sacrifice and yours...'"), the unbloody renewal of Our Lord's immolation on the Cross (cf., "'We have an altar' (Heb. 13.10)..."), the very life of a Christian: Give us this day our Supersubstantial Bread... (from the "Pater Noster" of Mt. 6.11, DRV, cf. Jn. 6.34). Indeed, since the suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass - decreed "ex cathedra"* by Pope St. Pius V to be "the norm [that is, "the ordinary" of the Roman Rite] in perpetuity" (cf., "The Traditional Latin Mass...") -  by the issuance of Pope Paul VI's "Missale Romanum" which merely formally declared the Roman Pontiff's "wish" to have Bugnini's 'Mass' widely celebrated (cf., "Obey God, rather than men"), almost the whole of Catholic world has lost the Catholic sense of penance: for the New 'Mass' introduced by the Vatican in 1969 is a [Protestant] celebrative fellowship around a commemorative meal.** Some other indications of this loss of the Catholic sense of penance flowing from the New 'celebration': the abolition in the New 'Church Calendar' of the traditional observance of abstinence from meat every Friday (except when there is a First Class Feast, as when Christmas falls on that day) throughout the year, restricting it to Ash Wednesday and Holy Friday; and, the general reaction of "Novus Ordo" Catholics (who are used to see the priests and religious of their New 'Catholic Order' in layman's apparel and fashion) to Traditional members of the clergy who don the black cassock everywhere they go even when the sun is at its peak: "Don't you feel uncomfortable?" - for there shall be like people like priest [Osee (Hosea in non-Catholic versions) 4.9].

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* That is, "from the Chair" of the Sovereign Roman Pontiff speaking also in his capacity as the supreme lawgiver and judge whose judgments and decrees, solemnly issued in the name of God, cannot be revoked.

** ** The New 'Mass' was defined in Pope Paul VI's "Institutio Generalis" (General Introduction) according as the Lutherans understood it and not as the Council of Trent dogmatically defined it: “The Lord’s Supper or Mass is the assembly or meeting of the People of God, met together with a priest presiding, to celebrate the Memorial*** of the Lord."

*** Though still using the same term, this is no longer understood, however, in the same sense as it was understood in Catholicism prior to Vatican II, that is, to show the death of the Lord (1 Cor. 11.26) by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood; hence, we find in the traditional formula for the consecration of the wine the "Mysterium Fidei" (the mystery of Faith) - now, shifted to the "anamnesis" of the New 'Mass' but pushed from the sole focus to a side: the "presider", "Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith," to which the assembly responds, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again," for the inventors of the New Rite knew very well that an explicitly diabolical action always manifests a doing away with the Cross and that completely.

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Our Lady in Her first Fatima Message attempts to salvage then our Traditional Eucharistic life, vicarious of the Passion and Death of the Beloved on Calvary - a life in which the interests of the Sovereign God (all which pertain to His glory - that is, His manifested majestic goodness duly acknowledged by His creatures) occupy the centrally prime position to which follows in order the interest of salvation of souls; a life according to the rhythm of the beatings of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord on the Cross: to console and appease the greatly offended heart of Our Heavenly Father (cf., our reply to a comment on "The Problem with the 'Divine Mercy Devotion'") and to snatch poor miserable sinners descending to their  eternal wretchedness in hell which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25.41).   

Related post: "'My Sacrifice and yours...'"