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JMJ
Feast of the Epiphany
The people that walked in darkness...
them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death...
have seen a GREAT LIGHT
(Is. 9.2.)
God left the heavens to remake the hearts of men which, disordered by Original Sin in its desires and affections, have gone after those goods proposed to it by a mind darkened and prone to error as the first and the highest to which everything else must be duly subordinated - the spiraling chaos of the day. There is not any man just. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. All have turned out of the way: there is none that doth good... (Ps. 13.3: Rom. 3.10-12). The Savior and Eternal Word (cf., Jn. 1.1) made flesh (Jn. 1.14), in [Whom] was life and the life was the light of men and the light shineth in darkness" (Jn. 1.4), would put things in the right order: Why asketh thou me concerning good? One is good, God (Mt. 19.17).
God seeks the first and the center of everything - not the second or third place and not the peripheral; God seeks the whole and the entire - not a mere share. But the darkness did not comprehend It" (Jn. 1.5). Therefore, in varying degrees a great mass of people (the merrying unbelievers and pretended Christians) miss the full import of Christmas. And to this mass we are to add even those who were supposed to be marching under the banner of Sacred Tradition who, [j]ealous of their position to be at the first and at the center of restoration-'command', now have actually started arbitrating*, nay arrogating** things which the fingers of the Divine Infant has traced and compassed; exaggerating their "[Theological] scaffolding" (Fr. Reginald-Garrigou Lagrange, O.P.) to be the whole and the entire edifice of the great Spiritual battle of the times!
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* Appallingly substituting their 'hierarchical' [or personal] expediencies for the requirements of the basic sense of justice and fairness and the canonical requirements in the conferment of the sacred Orders and in the administration of Holy Communion: those who everyday stand before God at the foot of the altar praying "Judica me Deus..." while at the high altar "offer up [before the face of God] the Sacrifice of justice" (Ps. 4.6).
** Pretending to be the infallible Catholic authority - whereas in the 4th century the claim was simply to be "the voice of orthodoxy" - by whose words and emergency arrangement things should be established, delimited and circumscribed (but with it at the hub).
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Our Lord was found only by two classes: those who know, and those who do not know - but never by those who think they know. Divinity is so profound that it can be grasped only by the 'extremes' of simplicity and wisdom. There is something in common between the wise and the simple, and that is humility. The wise man is humble because he knows that regardless of how deep he digs, Divinity is always deeper; the simple man is humble, because he knows Divinity is so deep there is no use of him digging. But that self-wise inquirer, with a sophomoric mind stuffed with the pride of his little learning and of his sense of whatever vain little 'best' in possession, is so convinced of his knowledge (his little light)and position (his guiding light) that he will not dig because he thinks nothing can be deeper than himself.
There is only one way to discover God manifesting Himself - and that is by being little, which is another word for being humble. There is only one way in which we discover anything big, and that is by being little. There is only one spirit by which we can discover the immense God, and that is the spirit of little children. But the proud man, he is so big that he thinks there is nothing wiser than himself, and so self-sufficient that nothing could ever add to his sufficiency. He is so big - and indispensable - mentally, that to him everything else is little - and therefore 'disposable'.
Only the humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe (and the true God of our holy Catholic Tradition much bigger than Tradition itself), therefore, are the ones who will ever understand the reason of His Manifestation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only a good God could say: "You give Me your humanity and I will give you a participation in My divinity; you give Me your time and I will give you My eternity; you give Me your weary body and I will give you redemption; you give Me all your love, affections, and desires, I will give you My Heart; you give Me your nothingness and I will give you My All."
His law then must be our law. As He Who Is God descended even to the lowness of childhood, as the first step to everlasting triumph, so we must descend from our ignorant pride to the level of what we are in His eyes. The Great Light is risen upon us to dispel the darkness of our own, as always, little light. [Taken, with adaptations, from the addresses given by Abp. F. Sheen on December 24,31 in 1933.]
A most blessed Feast to all!
Related post: "True Humility"
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ReplyDeleteJMJ
The Conciliar Fad of Ecumenical "SEARCH for the 'truth'"
"There came wise men... saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star... and are come to adore Him" (Mt. 2.2).
Humility, which is common to the simple and the wise, is the condition of discovering Wisdom. If our age lacks any quality at all, it is what might be called teachableness, or what the Latins called docility.
Minds today rely principally on what they have obtained by their own perception, thought, or reading. Some fancy they can find out truth entirely by themselves and disdain the idea that they are impoverished and therefore need the instruction and guidance of that "Church, the pillar and ground of the truth" (St. Paul, First Epistle to Timothy, 3.15), that is "Constantinian-Gregorian-Tridentine-'Tirumphalistic' in its historical continuity" (cf., Prof. R. Amerio, "A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the 20th Century"); thinking that in its "eclipse" everyone comes to the liberty of 'speaking out one's mind': the promise of the 1789 "Enlightenment" - and that in a chaotic grand forum of endless debate and discussion. Others believe that Wisdom is synonymous with a smattering of facts; even University education has become so impregnated with research of useless facts, that it forgets research is only a means to an end, which is the discovery, possession, adherence and devotion to the Truth. It is well to remember that Herod inquired diligently where the divine Child was born. But the Wise Men understood education far better. They were men of research too, for they searched the skies - but they were humble enough to know that research was only an instrument, and so they followed a true science of the stars until it brought them to the Maker of the stars, the Wisdom of the world, and the Light of men, Who Is Christ the Lord. And had they even been "privately" (Mt. 2.7) called into the Conciliar Vatican City of the day, they, led on by Her who is the "Great Sign in heaven... bright as the sun and fair as the moon," would have understood true ecumenism far better (cf., our posts "Our 'Great Reversal'" and "'What is Truth?'") still - the ecumenism of return to that true Church in its "historical continuity" and of adoration in bended knee before the Eternal Word made flesh truly, really, and substantially present on our traditional high altar.
The modern-day Herods never find the Church as they never find the Christ - not even in their attempt to slaughter it in the press and media with the Communist propaganda: the pseudo-Catholic Church of Vatican II, the so-called "New Ecclesial Reality" or the "New 'Catholic Order'" with its Synagogue-bred-"effeminate"*-"mock-clergy"**, IS still the INSTITUTIONAL Catholic Church (cf., our post "The Year That Was 1929"); and the reason is that men never feel a tug toward the Church until they have ceased to pull against it. A deaf ear should really be turned to their attacks because they have not earned the intellectual right to attack the Church - they do not really know anything about it, nay, do not really want to treat it with a true open mind for they have stood wrong; but that is just another way again of saying we must be humble.
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* Cf., our post "Our Lady, Vatican II Disorientation, and the Annihilation of Many Nations"
** Cf., our post "Anti-Christian Conspiracy: Scriptural Truth and Historical Fact"
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Only the teachable find the Teacher, only the docile find the Doctor, only the humble find the Exalted.
[Taken, with adaptations, from the address given by Abp. F. Sheen on Dec. 31, 1933.]