August 23, 2016 Update on the Feast of Saint Philip Benizi and the Commemoration of the Vigil of Saint Bartholomew

As it is going to take another six hours to complete the next original article for this site, I have decided at 12:34 a.m. on the Feast of Saint Philip Benizi that it can wait. It is already a long article, but I assure readers that it will provide them with a very comprehensive history of the conciliar Vatican's two-decades' old plan to sell out the suffering Catholics of Red China who have been persecuted by the Chicom's own rump church, the so-called Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. I am sorry for the delay, but those who read these articles are used to the length, which is one of the reasons that so few people read them these days. Nevertheless, though, I am writing for the long term in order to provide readers now and in the future with a bit of detail that cannot be provided in a soundbite. All I can do is to apologize for the additional delay and to thank readers for the patience.

Today is the Feast of Saint Philip Benizi, one of the seven founders of the Order of Servites, which was founded to promote devotion to the Seven Dolors of Our Lady. We are very devoted to the Servites and make it a point to pray to their seven founders, including Saint Philip Benizi, every day.

Here is a brief account of this great client of Our Lady's life as found in the readings for Matins in today's Divine Office:

This Philip was a scion of the noble Florentine family of the Benizi from his very cradle he showed signs of holiness. When he had scarcely entered the fifth month of his life, his cries marvellously assumed the form of words, entreating his mother to give some alms to the servants of the Mother of God. While he was a young man at Paris studying letters, but ever of a fervent piety, he stirred up in many the love of our Fatherland which is in heaven. After his return to his own country, the most blessed Virgin appeared to him in a vision, and specially called on him to enter the Order of her Servants, which had then been newly founded. He withdrew himself to a cave on Monte Senario, where he led a life hard as touching the chastisement of the flesh, but sweet with thoughts of the agonies of Christ. Thence he came forth and went through nearly all Europe and great part of Asia, preaching the Gospel, founding Guilds everywhere in honour of the Seven Sorrows of the Mother of God, and extending his Order by the wonderful example of his own holy life.

He was forced against his own wishes to undertake the duties of General of his Order, and, in his love of God and of the spreading of the Catholic Faith, sent forth brethren to preach the Gospel of Christ in Russia. He himself went through many cities of Italy, stilled the raging quarrels of the inhabitants, and recalled many of them to their obedience to the Bishop of Rome. He left nothing undone to forward the salvation of his neighbour, and brought the most depraved wretches to leave the slough of their sins, to do penance, and to love Jesus Christ. He was most earnest in prayer, and was often seen to fall into trances while engaged in it. Virginity he so prized that to his very last breath he kept it unsullied by dint of self-imposed and stern penances.

Everywhere appeared in him an extraordinary pity towards the poor, whereof it is a famous instance that at the village of Camiliano in the territory of Sienna he gave his own garment to a naked leper who asked him for an alms, and as soon as the said leper had cast it about him he was straightway cleansed of his leprosy. The fame of this miracle spread far and wide, and some of the Cardinals who had assembled at Viterbo after the death of Clement IV., to elect a successor to him, cast their eyes upon Philip, with whose heavenly wisdom they were also acquainted. When the man of God found how things stood, lest he should be constrained to take upon him the burden of the Pastoral Office, he went and hid himself on Montagnate, until Gregory X. had been proclaimed Pope. By his prayers he obtained medicinal powers for the waters in these mountains, which are still called St Philip's Baths. At length, (on the 22nd of August,) in the year 1285, he departed this life in a most holy manner at Todi, while embracing the image of Christ hanging upon the Cross, which he called his book. At his grave the blind received their sight, the lame walked, and the dead were raised. Pope Clement X., finding him famous for these and many other great signs and wonders, enrolled his name among those of the Saints. (Matins, Divine Office, Feast of Saint Philip Benizi.)

Finally, remember that Blessed Among Women: Defending the Sublime Privileges of the Blessed Virgin Mary is now available for purchase at the Create Space Bookstore. The book is also available at Amazon and in a Kindle edition. 

Thank you.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

Announcing Publication of "Blessed Among Women: Defending the Sublime Privileges of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Although it has taken a long enough time to do so, Blessed Among Women: Defending the Sublime Privileges of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is now available for purchase at the Create Space Bookstore. The book is also available at Amazon and in a Kindle edition. 

The book is an effort to refute several of Jorge Mario Bergoglio's unspeakably horrific blasphemies against Our Lady. Additionally, the book examines one particular instance of the Argentine Apostate's many blasphemies against the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, under Whose Divine inspiration every word of Sacred Scripture was written. By doing this, of course, Senor Bergoglio, the lay Jesuit who is a textbook Modernist, is continuing the perverse "tradition" that was pioneered by his precessors, especially Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, each of whom specialized in distorting and misrpresenting the words of Sacred Scripture and of the Fathers and Doctors of Holy Mother Church in order to make appear to be witnesses in behalf of one Modernist presupposition after another that has been enshrined by the ethos of conciliarism.

The print book costs $10.00. The Kindle edition is $9.99.

I can now return to the work of my next original article, which was delayed by all of the formatting and reformatting that the Create Space "review" process required me to do, particularly yesterday, Saturday, August 20, 2016, the Feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux within the Octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Thank you for your patience as I spent the time that was necessary to complete the book for publication. Actually, Bergoglio's relative silence this month has given me the chance to publish the book. Given Bergoglio's visit to the United States of America and his "synod" last year, to say nothing of the release of Amoris Laetitia five months ago now, it was just hard to find the time necessary to put the book together, edit it (chapter one was proofread by a volunteer to whom I am greatly indebted), uploaded it, and then deal with the formatting issues.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Jane Fremiot de Chantal, pray for us.

ON THE FEAST OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Well, I have completed the editing associated with my next book, which should be available for purchase by tomorrow morning, Sunday, August 21, 2016, the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal. This means I can now resume work on my next original article for this site. I thank the eight remaining readers of this site for their patience in the middle of my work on the forthcoming book and during a series of events with our house that neeeded immediate attention. 

As noted by the title of this "Updates and Summary" entry, today is the Feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who revived devotion to Our Lady in the Twelfth Cenutry. Here is an account of the life of this wonderful client of Our Lady, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a defender of the Catholic Faith and a Doctor of Holy Mother Church, as found in the readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office:

Bernard was born (in the year of salvation 1091) at a decent place in Burgundy called Fontaines. On account of extraordinary good looks, he was as a boy very much sought after by women, but he could never be turned aside from his resolution to keep chaste. To fly from these temptations of the devil, he determined at two-and-twenty years of age to enter the Monastery of Citeaux, whence the Cistercian Order took its rise. When this resolution of Bernard's became known, his brothers did all their diligence to change his purpose, but he only became the more eloquent and happy about it. Them and others he so brought over to his mind, that thirty young men entered the same Order along with him. As a monk he was so given to fasting, that as often as he had to eat, so often he seemed to be in pain. He exercised himself wonderfully in watching and prayer, and was a great lover of Christian poverty. Thus he led on earth an heavenly life, purged of all care and desire for transitory things.

He was a burning and shining light of lowliness, mercifulness, and kindness. His concentration of thought was such, that he hardly used his senses except to do good works, in which latter he acted with admirable wisdom. Thus occupied, he refused the Bishoprics of Genoa, Milan, and others, which were offered to him, declaring that he was unworthy of so high a sphere of duty. Being made Abbat of Clairvaux in 1115, he built monasteries in many places, wherein the excellent rules and discipline of Bernard long flourished. When Pope Innocent II., in 1138, restored the monastery of St Vincent and St Anastasius at Rome, Bernard set over it the Abbat who was afterwards the Supreme Pontiff Eugene III., and who is also the same to whom he addressed his book upon Consideration.

He was the author of many writings, in which it is manifest that his teaching was rather given him of God, than gained by hard work. In consequence of his high reputation for excellence, he was called by the most exalted Princes to act as arbiter of their disputes, and for this end, and to settle affairs of the Church, he often went to Italy. He was an eminent helper to Pope Innocent II., in putting down the schism of Peter Leoni, and worked to this end, both at the Courts of the Emperor and of Henry King of England, and in the Council of Pisa. He fell asleep in the Lord, (at Clairvaux, on the 20th day of August,) in the year 1153,  the sixty-third year of his age. He was famous for miracles, and Pope Alexander III. numbered him among the Saints. Pope Pius VIII., acting on the advice of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, declared and confirmed St Bernard a Doctor of the Universal Church. He also commanded that all should use the Mass and Office for him as for a Doctor, and granted perpetual yearly plenary indulgences to all who should visit Churches of the Cistercian Order upon the Feastday of this Saint. (The Divine Office, Matins, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.)

His words below should give us great confidence in this time when we can see the convergence of the forces of Antichrist in the world and in the counterfeit church of concilairism:

Whoever you are, when you find yourself tossed by storms and tempests upon this world's raging waters, rather than walking upon firm dry land, never take your eyes from the brightness of this start lest you be overwhelmed by the storm. When the winds of temptation blow, when you run upon the rocks of disaster, look the star. Cry out to Mary! If you are cast away upon the waves of pride or ambition, of detraction or jealousy, look to the star. Cry out to Mary!! When anger, avarice, or the lusts of the flesh assail the ship of your mind, look up to Mary. When you are worried by the enormity of your sins, troubled by a confused conscience, or terrified by the horrors of the judgment to come, when you begin to drown in the bottomless pit of sorrow or sink in the abyss of despair, think of Mary.

In danger, in difficulties, think of Mary. Call upon Mary! Never let her name be absent from your lips or absent from your heart. If you would obtain the help of her prayers, do not neglect to follow the example of her conduct. If you follow her, you will not stray; if you pray to her, you need not despair. If you think of her, you will not err; sustained by her, you will never fall; protected by her, you need not fear; guided by her, you will walk without weariness. If she smiles upon you, you will succeed. You will experience in your own heart with what justice it is said And the Virgin's name was Mary.

With confidence in Our Lady and praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits, therefore, we continue our defense of the Faith as we also seek to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as her consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Christ the Kingm, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. We bear each of the crosses of the present moment with joy and gratitude, knowing that the only thing that matters is dying in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Our Lady seeks the conversion, not the reaffirmation, of sinners. We must beg her for our own conversion on a daily basis so that we will be better able to offer her all that we have and do during the course of a day to be disposed of as she sees fit the honor and glory of God and for the conversion of other poor sinners.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.