Blogposts

Battling the Church

In February 1960, Nikita Khrushchev approved a super-secret plan for destroying the Vatican’s moral authority in Western Europe…Up until that time, the KGB had fought its “mortal enemy” in Eastern Europe, where the Holy See had been crudely attacked as a cesspool of espionage in the pay of American imperialism, and its representatives had been summarily jailed as spies. Now Moscow wanted the Vatican discredited by its own priests, on its home territory, as a bastion of Nazism.

The second precept of the Church (“You shall confess your sins at least once a year.") The third precept (“You shall humbly receive your Creator in Holy Communion at least during the Easter season.") The Easter Season for this purpose extends from the 1st Sunday of Lent until Trinity Sunday.

Objections to Confession and Catholic Responses

Objection #1 – Only God can forgive sin. It is true that only God can forgive sin (on His own authority). God is the Person forgiving sin in Confession.

It was a staple of the Church in the Cold War era to pray for the conversion of Russia. The Soviet regime was a fierce enemy of the Church and a great persecutor of Catholics and orthodox Christians. Josef Stalin was the architect of mass murder. Christians were murdered or sent to the Gulag, a network of concentration camps, which were in existence before the Nazi camps. Millions upon millions died in these camps. This was documented by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his book The Gulag Archipelago.

Our contemporaries, including sadly many Christians, reject the notion of hell as something incompatible with God’s love and mercy. In fact there have been those who maintain that, at the end, even Satan will be reconciled to God, a false-teaching called apocatastasis, meaning a restoration to the original state. The Church has rejected this as contrary to the teachings of the Faith.

The Reproaches are an important part of Good Friday because they highlight the essential injustice of the Crucifixion, the culpability of humanity in this action, and the role of sin in those times and our times in bringing this about. We are given remarkable gifts by God, and the signs are all around us, and yet often we do not show gratitude. Rather, we turn our backs on God and deny God due reverence in our lives and in our worship.

History

Whereas according to current Roman use Crosses and images are only veiled during Passiontide, in the Middle Ages the common thing was to cover them right at the start of Lent, be it from the Terce (Mid-Morning Prayer) of the Monday after the first Sunday of Lent, be it – although less frequently – already from Ash Wednesday. Here and there the veiling was even done on Septuagesima, 70 days before Easter. Moreover, not only Crosses and images were withdrawn from the view of the faithful by means of veils, but also reliquaries and chandeliers, and even evangeliaries (Gospel Books) whose covers were ornamented with pictorial representations were sometimes veiled. […]

We have heard the passage from the Acts of the Apostles (20:17-38) in which Saint Paul speaks to the presbyters of Ephesus, intentionally recounted by Saint Luke as the testament of the apostle, as a discourse destined not only for the presbyters of Ephesus, but for the presbyters of all time. Saint Paul is speaking not only with those who were present in that place, he is really speaking with us, so let us try to understand a little of what he is saying to us, at this time. [...]

One of the characteristics of the Lenten season is something call the Stations or Station Churches. Each day in Lent has a “station-church” to which the faithful would process and pray and fast. Station became the place before which or within which the faithful walked in procession and, tired out, but always standing, sometimes leaning on a stick, assisted, before leaving, at the celebration of the Liturgy Station in the secondary sense meant a partial fast or day of partial fast, as distinguished from a day of full fast. The station normally ceased at the ninth hour (3PM), while the full fast was prolonged to the evening. Wednesdays and Fridays were days of customary if not obligatory Christian fast by the beginning of the second century.

Some particulars from the Conference of the American Bishops about a proposed bill called the Equality Act, introduced in Congress and supported by the President. The Conference rejects this proposed bill and advises Catholics to oppose it:

The Church’s greatest treasure is the sacrifice of the Mass and the Presence of Christ in His Church, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, true God, true Man. The Church’s greatest crisis has been in this latter days where Catholics no longer recognize or understand the meaning of the Mass and the Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and that He is God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, as well as Man taking flesh from the Virgin Mary. In the midst of this crisis which was going on during the Second Vatican Council and which metastasized after it. Pope Paul VI issued perhaps his most profound encyclical called Mysterium Fidei, the Mystery of Faith, in 1965. In it is a primer on the Church’s teaching on the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. Below are highlights from this great encyclical:

#1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death,(emphasis added) in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification or immediately, -or immediate and everlasting damnation.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church

You ought love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength. Matt 22:37 If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.
—John 14:15