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J.M.J.
Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
I have labored with crying... my eyes have failed, whilst I hope in my [Catholic] God... What great troubles hast Thou shown me, many and grievous; and turning, Thou hast brought me back to life, and hast brought me back again from the depths of the earth... Turn not away Thy Face from Thy servant (from the Psalms).
We prove the firmness of our faith by persevering in it in spite of its obscurity; we prove that our hope is strong by continuing to hope in spite of adversity and even when God seems to have abandoned us. As an act of faith made in the midst of darkness and doubts is more meritorious, so is it with the act of hope uttered in desolation and abandonment.
The three Theological Virtues are the most appropriate and fitting means of uniting us to God; in fact, the purer, more intense, and supernatural are our Faith, Hope, and Charity, the more closely they unite us to Him. But to help us reach this point of glorious union with God, He leads us through the crucible of purification. The story of Job is re-enacted in some way in the life of every soul dear to God; he was tried in his property, his children, his own person, deserted by his friends, and ridiculed by his wife. He who had been rich and esteemed, found himself on a dunghill, covered from head to foot with horrible sores. But if God is good, if it is true that He desires our good, why does He permit all this? Why does He let us suffer? For God made not death, says Sacred Writ, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living... It was the wicked who with hands and words invited death (Wis. 1.13-16). Death and suffering are the consequences of sin, which God has not prevented because He has willed to leave man free. And yet not only sinners suffer, but the innocent also. Why? Because God wishes to try them a gold is tried in the furnace, purifying them and raising them to a good, to a state of happiness immeasurably superior to that which the 'Disneyworld' called the Novus Ordo (the "New [Dis]Order" of the Freemasons - secular or Vatican II-sponsored to which the mainstream-SSPX train under Msgr. Fellay is now bound) offers. Thus, God permits the sufferings of the innocent, and even uses the consequences of sin - wars, disorders, social and personal injustices - for the greater good of His elect (reduced to the Scriptural remnant of pockets of "Catholic Resistance").
It is often true, however, that when we are undergoing purification we neither see nor understand the reason for it. God does not account for His actions nor does He reveal His plans to us; therefore, it is difficult to endure in Faith and Hope - difficult, but not impossible, for God never sends us crosses which are beyond are strength, just as He never abandons us unless we first abandon Him.
The least act of Hope, of supernatural trust in God, as with Faith, made in the midst of our present tribulations and sorrows, in a state of interior or exterior desolation, is worth far more than a thousand acts made in times of joy and prosperity. When we are suffering in mind, heart, or body, when we are experiencing the void of abandonment and helplessness - especially even in our endeavor not only to find and posses the Truth but more so to love It, for the apostates and even the 'gang' of Msgr. Fellay (of the institutional-SSPX*) know very well Catholic Theology - when we find ourselves a prey to the repugnances and rebellions of nature which, being catered to by the "New [Dis]Order" of things inside and outside of the institutional mainstream-Church under the banner of the Masonic 'Naturalism',** would like to throw off the yoke of the Lord in the Traditional Catholic Order of things (personal, 'spiritual', and social), we cannot pretend as the Neo-citizens and 'faithfuls' do to have the comforting feeling of hope, of confidence; often we may even experience the opposite sentiment, and yet, even this state we can make acts of Hope and confidence which are not felt but willed. The Theological Virtues are practiced essentially by the will. When they are accompanied by feeling, the practice of them is pleasant and consoling; but, when the act must be made by the will alone, then this exercise is dry and cold, but it is not for this reason of less merit; on the contrary, it is even more meritorious and therefore gives more glory to God. We should not therefore be disturbed if we do not feel confidence; we must will, aided by the Holy Ghost, to have confidence, to will to hope, to hope at any cost, in spite of all the blows God may inflict on us by means of crosses. This is the moment to repeat with Job: Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him (13.15). We must not deceive ourselves, thinking we can go through these tribulations without having to fight against discouragement, against temptations to distrust, and perhaps even to despair; this is the reaction of nature which rebels against that which wounds it.
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* The 'Traditionalists' caught up in the comfort and convenience of institutions.
** The fundamental principle behind the 1789 and Vatican II 'Enlightenment' on the so-called 'Rights and Dignity of Man'. '[g]od made me this way; respect and don't judge.'
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The good Lord knows our weakness - not in Neo-Catholic sense: sin diluted thus; He pities us as long as we stand in truth before Him. These feelings do not offend God, provided we always try to react by making acts of confidence with our will. Every time a wave of discouragement tries to carry us away, we must react against it by anchoring ourselves in God by a simple movement of trust; even if our spiritual life should be reduced, for certain periods, to this exercise alone, we will not have lost anything but we will have gained much. It is precisely by going through these crosses that we reach the heroic practice of Faith and Hope; and the heroism of the virtues is necessary for the attainment of sanctity.
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