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J.M.J.
Third Sunday in Lent
"The devil was dumb..."
The devil leads souls to their eternal damnation but not with their eyes open as to the malice of sin (never mind the rights and claims of God) that they may not see the evil they seek under the seemingly true and good: for their own malice blinded them (Wis. 2.21); and, falling into sin, he makes them dumb, that through shame, they may conceal their guilt in Confession. Thus, the devil drives souls to hell by a double chain: of transgression wherein we would be as gods on the judgment seat over what is good and evil; and, of a still greater sin of sacrilege in concealing our sins before the tribunal of Our Lord - at the Confessional.
Set a door, O Lord, round about my lips (Ps. 140.3). We should keep a door to our mouth, says St. Augustine, that it may be closed against detraction, calumny, blasphemies, swearings and cursings, immodest and idle talk; silence and restraint against these things is an act of virtue; but, silence in confessing our sins with contrite heart is to be silent on our ailing soul in which fatal (mortal) ulcers and gangrenous sores are festering.
God has made sin shameful that we may abstain from it but gives confidence in confessing it by promising us pardon if we confess our sins with compunction of heart. The devil, on the contrary gives confidence to sin by holding out false hopes of pardon - speaking by the putrid blasphemous mouth of the muddle-headed Antipope Bergogrelio: "the [g]od of justice does not condemn" (cf. our post, the "NEW 'Catholic THEOlogy'" of Vatican II: "The Ultimate Delusion of Vatican II-Catholicism") for he ever waits our conversion, seeks not the separation of sinners; after sin, he inspires shame to prevents its exposure by Sacramental Confession.
The foolishness behind the shame the devil inspires in a sinner is refuted by the written Word of God: there is a shame that brings glory and grace (Ecclus. 4.25). Before a secular tribunal, our acknowledgement of our guilt brings condemnation; but, before the tribunal of Our Lord is our pardon and the crown of eternal glory. How could we be afraid of the reproof of our Confessor and yet fear not the rebuke of the Eternal Omniscient Judge at the hour of death and on the Last Judgment: I will discover thy shame to thy face, and will show thy wickedness to the nations (Nah. 3.5). "The devil," says St. Ambrose, "keeps an account of our sins to charge us with them before God." To "prevent such accusation, we must anticipate our accuser accusing ourselves before our Confessor that no accuser could stand against us before the tribunal of Our Lord."
If we excuse our sin, according to St. Augustine, we shut it up within our soul and therefore we shut out pardon for even just one single mortal sin we refuse to deplore before God's tribunal; thus, we suffer, according to St. Alphonsus, an anticipation of hell.
To cast out this dumb devil, the finger of God - the Spirit of Truth - points out and exposes to us the point of our departure and separation from God under the light of the truth. The finger of God presents to and convinces us of a hard truth our ego, with all its vainglory, pretensions, love for what is easy, convenient, comfortable, and the emotionally good, evades. This very moment - this moment of the truth - is the moment of our salvation. This is the ground of our saving union with Him Who is the Omnipotent. This is that pure ground of the Lord and Savior where the lying spirits have no part whatsoever (against the 'ecumenical' madness of the disoriented Rome and Menzingen). For thy soul, be not ashamed to say the truth (Ecclus. 4.24). The truth is not only for the good of one's soul; it is the good also of others' - wherefore, Catholic Resistance must also speak not only against the "New World Order" but also against the pseudo-Church of Vatican II (a 'Church' for the "New World Order" of Freemasonry) and the 'extraordinary' integration into that same poisoned pasture prepared for the precursor of the Antichrist - the Antipope in Rome - being pursued by the mainstream-SSPX hierarcy, alongside sedevacantism