Posted on 04/02/2020 5:17:06 PM PDT by Repent and Believe
THE SPONTANEOUS and ardent devotion, beloved sons and daughters, with which you flocked here on his day of penance could not better interpret Our intentions nor fulfill with greater satisfaction for Us the desire of Our Heart confided to you on the vigil of the opening of the Holy Door, when We exhorted you to give life and strength to a fervent spiritual movement of expiation during this Jubilee Year.
On this particular Sunday, the Church opens the sacred time of the Passion and with the sorrowful note of its rites causes the drama of the Divine Expiator of human faults, Jesus Christ Our Lord, to live again before the eyes and in the souls of the faithful.
This world-wide day of penance corresponds truly to the most urgent needs of the society in which we live.
The eye illumined by faith—like the view of every honest man—which assists natural conscience unclouded by prejudices and defilement, could not fail to behold the wretched spectacle of a world in decay because of the ruin wrought in it on the fundamental moral structures of life. This eye at the same time beholds, in its unfailing clearness, that law which encourages the good and restrains the evil, that law which precedes and stands above all the codes of the earth and which remains the same among all peoples and at all ages, that law which is the norm of every human action and the base of all human society. {Cicero: De Legibus, 1. C. 4)}
While We are stranger to every unjustified pessimism which is in contrast with real, Christian hope, and are rather the son of our own time, not bound by unreasonable longings for the days which have passed, We, nevertheless, cannot fail to take note of a rising sea of private and public sins, which tends to submerge souls in mud and overthrow wholesome, social conventions.
As every age bears an imprint characteristic of its works, so our own, in its culpability, is marked by a grouping of features of which past centuries perhaps never saw the equal.
The first and most serious stigma of our age is its knowledge, which renders inexcusable its outrage against Divine Law. Considering the degree of enlightenment and intellectual life—diffused as never before among various social classes—a marvel in which civilization takes pride, considering the keen and jealous sense of its own personal dignity and its inner freedom of spirit of which today’s conscience boasts, the possibility or presumption of ignorance, concerning norms which govern relations between creatures and Creator should no longer find a place—nor, for that matter, the excuse founded upon this possibility which might lessen the guilt. This state of affairs, resulting in an almost universal moral decadence, has contaminated even spheres once traditionally immune, such as rural areas and the realm of tender childhood.
A series of shameless and criminal publications prepare the most disgraceful means of seduction and corruption for vice and crime. They conceal the ignominy and brutality of evil under the trappings of esthetics, art, ephemeral and deceitful charm, of false courage. They yield without restraint to a morbid desire for violent sensations and novel, licentious experiences. The exaltation of immorality has reached the stage of parading in public and injecting itself into the rhythm of the economic and social life of the people, exploiting for profit the most tragic calamities and most miserable weaknesses of humanity.
There is even, now and then, an attempt made to furnish a theoretical justification for the basest manifestations of this moral decadence by appealing to a humanism of dubious character or to an indulgence which condones the fault in order to deceive and corrupt souls more easily.
This false humanism and anti-Christian indulgence results in overthrowing the hierarchy of moral values and in lessening the sense of sin to the point of making it respectable, presenting it as the normal development of man’s faculties and as the enrichment of his personality.
Guilty of injuring society are those circles given to considering crime under the pretext of humanitarianism or civil tolerance, of natural human weakness; when those circles allow, or worse, put in motion, everything scientifically to rouse passions and to loosen every check or restraint arising from an elementary respect for public morality or from public decency when they depict in most seductive color the violation of the marriage bond, rebellion against public authority, suicide or the taking of another’s life.
Without doubt, We recognize, with a heart full of tender compassion, the weakness of human nature, particularly in the present historical conditions, We recognize that misery, abandonment, promiscuity of people living in squalid hovels are some of the most serious causes of immorality. But proper to man is always the will that is free and the control over his actions; proper to man is the supernatural help of grace which God never denies to him who trustfully seeks it.
And now measure, if eye and spirit move you, with the humility of one who perhaps must recognize himself as in part responsible, the number, gravity and frequency of sins in the world. Sin, properly the product of man, taints the earth and defaces the work of God. Consider the numberless sins, private and public, concealed and open—these sins against God and Church, sins of men against themselves in soul and body, against their neighbors, particularly the more humble and defenseless creatures, sins, finally, against the family and human society.
Some of these sins are so unheard of and cruel that new words are necessary to describe them. Weigh their gravity: of those committed through mere levity and of those knowingly premeditated and coldly perpetrated, of those which ruin one life only or which, on the other hand, are multiplied in chains of iniquity to the extent of becoming the wickedness of centuries or crimes against entire nations.
Compare, in the penetrating light of faith, this immense accumulation of baseness and vileness with the shining Sanctity of God, with the nobility of the end for which man was created, with the Christian ideals for which the Redeemer suffered pain and death; and then say whether Divine Justice can longer tolerate such a deformation of His image and His designs, such a great abuse of His gifts, such scorn of His will and, above all, such mockery of the innocent Blood of His Son.
As the Vicar of that Jesus who shed His Blood to the last drop to reconcile men with their Heavenly Father, as the visible head of that Church which is His Mystical Body for the salvation and sanctification of souls, We exhort you to thoughts and works of penance, so that the first step toward the effective, moral rehabilitation of humanity may be taken by you and by all Our sons and daughters scattered throughout the entire world.
With all the ardor of Our paternal heart We beg of you sincere repentance for past sins, the full detestation of sin and a firm purpose of amendment. We implore you to assure Divine pardon for yourselves by means of the Sacrament of Confession and the Legacy of Love of the Divine Redeemer. We beseech you finally to lighten the debt of temporal punishment due to your sins through manifold works of satisfaction: prayers, alms, fasting, mortification, for which the current Holy Year offers a ready opportunity and invitation.
Along this road the soul returns to the embrace of the Heavenly Father, rises again in Sanctifying Grace, reestablishes itself in order and in love. It reconciles itself with Divine justice. It is the great return of a rebellious humanity to the laws of God and the Church which We have longed for as We waited full of trust and hope, and which We seek to hasten with Our desires, with the yearnings of Our heart, with Our prayers and sacrifices, and by freely dispensing the inexhaustible spiritual treasure of the Church committed to Our care.
Do not fear for the serene joy of your life as if the call to penance could draw over you a veil of gloomy sadness. So far removed from this is the denial of self that it is rather the indispensable condition of inner gladness, destined by God for His servants here below. And with same anxiety and solicitude which consumes Our heart for your amendment, We do not hesitate to exhort you with St. Paul the Apostle: “Rejoice in the Lord always.” (Phil. 4,4)
In this spirit We have often raised Our voice in favor of the needy and those oppressed by wicked economic conditions, wretchedly deprived even of the bare necessities of life, calling for and promoting a more effective justice. But in the Christian view of a society where wealth might be better distributed, nevertheless, privation, renunciation and suffering always find their place—the inevitable but fruitful heritage of life here below. And the most intense enjoyment which a heart may ever be able to taste or desire here on earth will be, and must always be, overcome by the hope of a future and perfect happiness: “rejoicing in hope.” (Rom. 12,12) Substitute instead the materialistic concept of a world in which comfort is dreamed of as perfect and complete on earth and as the proper end and aim of life, and you will see the desire for justice often become blind selfishness and the ensuing well-being a race toward hedonism.
Now, indeed, hedonism, that is to say the breathless search after every earthly pleasure, the frantic effort to capture here below and at every cost happiness on earth, the flight from pain as from the greatest misfortune, the escape from every painful duty—all this makes life sad and almost unbearable, because it surrounds the spirit with a deadly emptiness. The present multiplication of insane acts of rebellion against life and its Author indicates nothing else, because with anti-Christian pretension it seeks to exclude from life every kind of suffering.
To know how to bear life! It is the first penance of every Christian, the first condition and first means of sanctity and sanctification. With that docile resignation which is proper to him who believes in a just and good God and in Jesus Christ, the Master and Guide of hearts, embrace with courage the often heavy daily cross. In carrying it with Jesus, its weight becomes light.
But the singularly grave conditions of the present hour impel Christians—if ever in the past, today above all—to provide in themselves the fulfillment of what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ (Col. 1, 24), not only through the desire of making ever better reparation for the evil which has been done and giving a more certain sign and more sure proof of the sincerity of their return, but also by contributing to the salvation of all the redeemed.
To this end, let all Christians, penitent and innocent, made brothers in the intention and work of a new salutary expiation, unite themselves to the Supreme Shepherd of souls and their only Savior, Jesus Christ, the Sacrificial Lamb Who takes away the sins of world. He is there on our altars to renew at every hour the Sacrifice of Golgotha.
May the army of souls who are forming works of expiation in the Church of God be mobilized together with Him and in virtue of His Grace on this holy day. Sufferings, accepted with Christian and willing resignation, or freely and generously chosen, will restore a Christian countenance to decadent humanity and will be a yet salutary counterbalance to human crimes on the scales of Divine justice.
Yes, oh Jesus crucified, Who have deified human nature by assuming it Yourself, Who after having preached justice, charity, goodness, Who after having made of the rich and the powerful the strength of the poor and the weak, have by Your Passion and Death bestowed grace and salvation on the human race, turn Your loving glance on this people which, in union with the faithful of the whole world, prostrates itself at Your feet in the spirit of penitence and implores Your pardon, also for those many unhappy creatures who would deliberately uncrown and profane You in the vile pride of their intelligence, the empty sensuality of their flesh.
O Lord, save us lest we perish. Calm the waves of the troubled sea of our spirit, be our companion in life and death, our merciful Judge. May the thunderbolts of well deserved punishment give place to a new and generous outpouring of Your mercy upon redeemed humanity. Extinguish hatred and rekindle love, dispel with the powerful Breath of Your Spirit schemes and desires for domination, destruction and war. Grant bread to the little ones, homes to the homeless, work to the workless, concord to nations, peace to the world and to all the reward of eternal happiness. Amen.
He also commented the following:
"It is sad that the world does not see the virus (or the economic harm that the reaction to it is causing) as a punishment for so many sins in the world. The world is turning only to material remedies instead of giving up their sins. During the plague in Milan during at the time of St. Charles Borromeo the hardest hit places were the villages and houses of those who lived in sin or mocked religion. Those homes where daily prayer, penance and spiritual reading were practiced were either not affected at all or else very slightly compared with others. Of course sometimes the just suffer as well because God gives them that opportunity for gaining merit for heaven and for offering themselves as victims for the conversion of sinners. It would be a shame if while avoiding church for fear of the virus Catholics did not at the same time make their home a sanctuary of prayer and virtue and instead make it a time for vacation from God while idly spending their time at home. When the government in the time of St. Charles instituted a mandatory quarantine St. Charles urged all to make a sincere confession and receive Communion before the quarantine began and to make it a time for prayer and penance. The people stuck at home organized their prayer life so well that it was said they were living as if they were so many religious communities. Remember, if you are not praying the daily rosary (and together as a family for those with families) then you are part of the problem, not the solution. There are other things which ought to form the minimum of prayer life for a Catholic (morning & night prayers; spiritual reading; frequent reception of the sacraments) but if the family rosary isn't being prayed daily one is not even on first base. One does not have to go to church for the rosary and can pray it no matter what. Let's be diligent in doing the things what we can all do that are so simple and then we can hope for God to take care of whatever happens."
Ping
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