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WHAT is it that changes the world? Events? Ideas? or men? Not mere
inhuman events, certainly. An earthquake, even of Messina; a
volcanic eruption, even of Mont Pelee; the sinking of a, Titanic,
do not jerk the globe off its axis. Doubtless the advent or
recession of a Glacial Period; the depression of a continent below
sea-level or its reappearance would alter history; but these
processes are too gradual or too wholesale to be given, in its
ordinary sense, the name "event." Therefore, not just the
cannon-ball at the bygone siege, of which we shall have to tell,
is, half-jestingly, to be offered as the cause of that tremendous
influencing of the world's history we aro to speak of, though it
had its rebound from the battered wall never wounded Don Inigo of
Loyola, who can foresee his career Ideas, then? That is far nearer
truth. It was the ideas set sailing down the wind by a Rousseau,
for instance, which, far rather than any grinding tax or
aristocratic privilege, settled maddeningly in men's brains, and
bred the Revolution?
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Saint Cajetan (Paperback)
George Herbert Ely; Edited by Brother Hermenegild Tosf; R. De Maulde De Claviere
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Discovery Miles 3 900
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Saint Cajetan lived in Rome in the early 1500s. He went to Venice
and then returned to Rome to found the order of the Theatines.
The story runs curiously parallel with the Tractarian movement,
Oxford having its counterpart in Strasbourg. It throws up its
leaders who, once become Catholics, do not altogether agree in
their policies for the diffusion of the Faith; it is composed
almost wholly of undergraduates and professors; it creates a new
religious Institute (if one may be allowed this inaccuracy when
speaking of so venerable a body as the Oratory); it reacts upon the
religious community from which it came out. But this group is led
by Ratisbonne (1802-1884) instead of Newman (1801- 1890),
shepherded by Bautain instead of Wiseman, preceded by Goschler and
Level instead of Ward and his friends. Moreover the Strasbourg
movement is earlier. Ratisbonne had been a priest already three
years when Keble preached his Assize Sermon on July 14,1833; and
the Institute of Notre Dame de Sion received Episcopal sanction in
Newman's critical year of 1845. But curiously, in the year 1847,
the Constitutions of the Institute were approved by Mgr. Affre and
Newman's Oratory began. The two men do not seem ever to have met,
though Abbe Ratisbonne came to England in 1858, 1863, 1867, and had
already known Manning, Faber, Gaisford, and others of the
Tractarians. Finally in May, 1879, Newman was created a Cardinal by
Leo XIII., and in May, 1880, the same Pontiff raised Ratisbonne to
the rank of Protonotary Apostolic. But these, perhaps forced,
coincidences cannot conceal many differences in the movements
inseparably connected with the names of these two great men;
especially in this, that there has been a gradual slackening of the
Jewish movement towards the Church, while the Anglican movement has
grown in force. So at least we should have said years ago. But now?
To some of us it looks as though the older prophecies were coming
true, more nearly to our own time than we could have dared to hope:
"He that scattered Israel shall gather him, and He shall keep him
as a shepherd doth his flock" (Jer. Xxxi. 10). May this story of
great faith and hope and greater charity help to lead many a "
wandering Jew" to the Feet of Christ " There remaineth therefore a
rest for the children of God."
The doctrine of hell is one of the four last things. Father
Schouppe gives a terrifying presentation of this doctrine that will
inspire people to avoid this horrible place and to save their soul.
We need to study this truth carefully so that we realize just how
important it is to become a Saint. Let us consider this story: The
following incident happened in 1837. A young under-lieutenant,
being in Paris, entered the Church of the Assumption, near the
Toilers, and saw a priest kneeling near a confessional. As he made
religion the habitual subject of his jokes, he wished to go to
confession to while away the time, and went into the confessional.
"Monsieur l'abbe," he said, "would you be good enough to hear my
confession?" "Willingly my son; confess unrestrained." "But I must
first say that I am a rather unique kind of a sinner." "No matter;
the sacrament of penance has been instituted for all sinners." "But
I am not very much of a believer in religious matters." "You
believe more than you think." "Believe? I? I am a regular scoffer."
The confessor saw with whom he had to deal, and that there was some
mystification. He replied, smiling: "You are a regular scoffer? Are
you then making fun of me too?" The pretended penitent smiled in
like manner. "Listen," the priest went on, "what you have just done
here is not serious. Let us leave confession aside; and, if you
please, have a little chat. I like military people greatly; and,
then, you have the appearance of a good, amiable youth. Tell me,
what is your rank?" "Under-lieutenant." "Will you remain an
under-lieutenant long?" "Two, three, perhaps four years." "And
after?" "I shall hope to become a lieutenant?" "And after?" "I hope
to become a captain." "And after?" "Lieutenant-colonel?" "How old
will you be then?" "Forty to forty-five years." "And after that?"
"I shall become a brigadier general." "And after?" "If I rise
higher, I shall be general of a division." "And after?" "After
there is nothing more except the Marshal's baton; but my
pretensions do not reach so high." "Well and good. But do you
intend to get married?" "Yes, when I shall be a superior officer."
"Well There you are married; a superior officer, a general, perhaps
even a French marshal, who knows? And after?" "After? Upon my word,
I do not know what will be after." "See, how strange it is " said
the abbe. Then, in a tone of voice that grew more sober: "You know
all that shall happen up to that point, and you do not know what
will be after. Well, I know, and I am going to tell you, After, you
shall die, be judged, and, if you continue to live as you do, you
shall be damned, you shall go and burn in hell; that is what will
be after." As the under-lieutenant, dispirited at this conclusion,
seemed anxious to steal away: "One moment, sir," said the abbe.
"You are a man of honor. So am I. Agree that you have offended me,
and owe me an apology. It will be simple. For eight days, before
retiring to rest, you will say: 'One day I shall die; but I laugh
at the idea. After my death I shall be judged; but I laugh at the
idea. After my judgment, I shall be damned; but I laugh at the
idea. I shall burn forever in hell; but I laugh at the idea ' That
is all. But you are going to give me your word of honor not to
neglect it, eh?" More and more wearied, and wishing, at any price,
to extricate himself from this false step, the under-lieutenant
made the promise. In the evening, his word being given, he began to
carry out his promise. "I shall die," he says. "I shall be judged."
He had not the courage to add: "I laugh at the idea." The week had
not passed before he returned to the Church of the Assumption, made
his confession seriously, and came out of the confessional his face
bathed with tears, and with joy in his heart.
This book is a translation, the only one from the Latin, of the
Preces Gertrudianae, a manual of devotions compiled in the
seventeenth century from the Suggestions of Divine Piety of St.
Gertrude and St. Mechtilde, nllns of the Order of St. Benedict. Of
this work Alban Butler says, in his life of St. Gertrude, that it
is perhaps the most useful production, next to the writings of St.
Teresa, with which any female saint ever enriched the Church. Care
has been taken to preserve, not only the substance, but, as far as
might be, the form, of the original prayers; and a few others, well
known and much valued, have been added as an Appendix. Let us
consider this advice: When you are distracted in prayer, commend it
to the Heart of Jesus, to be perfected by him, as our Lord Himself
taught St. Gertrude. One day, when she was nluch distracted in
prayer, he appeared to her, and held forth to her his Heart with
his own sacred hands, saying: Behold, I set My Heart before the
eyes of thy soul, that thou mayest commend to it all thine actions,
confidently trusting that all that thou canst not of thyself supply
to them will be therein supplied, so that they may appear perfect
and spotless in my sight. Remember always to say the Gloria Patri
with great devotion. The hermit Honorius relates that a certain
monk who had been accustomed to say his office negligently appeared
to another after his death and being asked what sufferings he had
to undergo in punishment of his carelessness, he said that all had
been satisfied for and effaced by the reverent devotion with which
he had always said the Gloria Patri.
The original title of this book, which was compiled from a series
of lectures delivered in Edinburgh in October, 1884 by Mgr. Dillon,
was The War of Antichrist with the Church and Christian
Civilization. The author wrote it "in order to do his part in
carrying out the instruction given by the Sovereign Pontiff in the
Encyclical Humanum Genus when he called upon the pastors of souls,
to whom it was addressed, to 'instruct the people as to the
artifices used by societies of this kind in seducing men and
enticing them into their ranks, and as to the depravity of their
opinions and the wickedness of their acts'. Mgr. Dillon's work has
already been honoured by the Holy Father himself with so marked and
so unusual an approbation that there is no need for us to accord it
any further praise than merely to take note of the fact. The book
was presented to His Holiness, accompanied by an Italian version of
its table of contents, and of long extracts from its principal
sections, and Leo XIII was pleased to order that the Italian
version should be completed, and the book printed and published at
Rome at his own expense." (The Month, Sept. 1885). Despite the fact
that the lectures were delivered by a Catholic prelate to an
audience composed mainly of members of his own faith, we feel that
the subject of international political skullduggery is one which
cannot fail to interest Catholic and non-Catholic alike, the more
so indeed since events in the course of the decades following the
original publication of this book have confirmed the lecturer's
thesis. The last four editions have appeared under the title of
Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked. Mgr. Dillon does not speak
explicitly of the two currents of thought and action proceeding
from the Masonic French Revolution, namely, the current of
Rousseauist-LockianMasonic Liberalism and the current of Socialism
and Communism. Implicitly, however, he does so when, on the one
hand, he foreshadows the United States of Europe and World
Federalism and, on the other, quotes the infamous Declaration of
the International in 1868. This Declaration, formulated at the
International Congress held at Geneva in 1868 and quoted by Mgr.
Dillon in his preface, is well worth reproducing, at least in part.
It runs as follows: "The object of the International Association of
Workmen, as of every other Socialist Association, is to do away
with the parasite and the pariah. Now what parasite can be compared
to the priest. "God and Christ, these citizen-Providences, have
been at all times the armour of Capital and the most sanguinary
enemies of the working classes. It is owing to God and to Christ
that we remain to this day in slavery. It is by deluding us with
lying hopes that the priests have caused us to accept all the
sufferings of this earth. It is only after sweeping away all
religion, and after tearing up even to the last roots every
religious idea that we can arrive at our political and social
ideal. "Down, then, with God and with Christ Down with the despots
of heaven and earth Death to the priests Such is the motto of our
grand crusade." In a note on page 20 of the original edition Mgr.
Dillon returned to the question of the direction of Freemasonry,
which he had mentioned in his preface. He there says: "The Jewish
connection with modern Freemasonry is an established fact
everywhere manifested in its history. The Jewish formulas employed
by Freemasonry, the Jewish traditions which run through its
ceremonial, point to a Jewish origin, or to the work of Jewish
contrivers .... Who knows but behind the Atheism and desire of gain
which impels them to urge on Christians to persecute the Church and
destroy it, there lies a hidden hope to reconstruct their Temple,
and in the darkest depths of secret society plotting there lurks a
deeper society still which looks to a return to the land of Judah
and to the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem?"
Father Faber begins: "Life is short, and it is wearing fast away.
We lose a great deal of time, and we want short roads to heaven,
though the right road is in truth far shorter than we believe. It
is true of most men that their light is greater than their heat,
which is only saying that we practice less than we profess. Yet
there are many souls, good, noble, and affectionate, who seem
rather to want light than beat. They want to know more of God, more
of themselves, and more of the relation in which they stand to God,
and then they would love Bnd serve Him better. There are many again
who, when they read or hear of the spiritual life, or come across
the ordinary maxims of Christian perfection, do not understand what
is put before them." Faber laments the fact: "The teaching of
spiritual books and the doctrines of perfection, as laid down by
the most approved writers, do not recommend themselves to them.
They consider that, unless they are under the vows of some monastic
order, they should aim iLt nothing m(lre than the avoiding of
mortal sin, and giving edification to those around them. They are
good people. They go to mass; they aid or start missions; they
countenance the clergy; they are kind to the poor; they say the
rosary; they frequent the sacraments. Yet when anyone talks to them
of serving God out of personal love to Him. of trying to be daily
more and more closely united to Him, of cultivating the spirit of
prayer, of constantly looking out to see what more they can do for
God, of mortifying their own will in things allowable, of disliking
the spirit of the world even in manifestations of it which are
short of sin, and of living more consciously in the presence of
God, they feel as if they were listening to an unknown language.
They have a jealousy, almost a dislike, of such truths, quite
irrespective of any attempt being made to force such a line of
conduct upon themselves. If they are humble they are puzzled: if
they are self-opinionated, the, are angry, critical, or
contemptuous, as the case may be There are many others to whom such
views are simply new, and who with modesty and self-distrust are
shaken by them, and to some extent receive them. Still upon the
whole such doctrines have a sound in their cars of being ultra and
extravagant, or poetical and fanciful, or peculiar and eccentric."
This work proceeds to explain why God loves us and how we can love
Him back as He wishes. It is an excellent work on the subject of
divine love.
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