Apostasy Continues to Have Consequences, part two

We are immersed in a culture of Judeo-Masonic religious indifferentism and pluralism here in the United States of America and elsewhere in the rest of the so-called “civilized” world, including in Europe where the Holy Faith took root in the First Millennium and flowered gloriously, albeit never without the problems caused by fallen human nature, in the Second Millennium during the period called Christendom, the Christ-centered world of the Middle Ages.

Father Denis Fahey described this world as follows in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

By the grace of the Headship of the Mystical Body, our Lord Jesus Christ is both Priest and King of redeemed mankind and, as such, exercises a twofold influence upon us. Firstly, as a Priest, He communicates to us the supernatural life of grace by which we, while ever remaining distinct from God, can enter into the vision and love of the Blessed Trinity. We can thus become one with God, not, of course, in the order of substance or being, but in the order of operation, of the immaterial union of vision and love. The Divine Nature is the principle of the Divine Vision and Love, and by grace we are ‘made partakers of the Divine Nature.’ This pure Catholic doctrine is infinitely removed from Masonic pantheism. Secondly, as King, our Lord exercises an exterior influence on us by His government of us. As King, He guides and directs us socially and individually, in order to dispose all things for the reception of the Supernatural Life which He, as Priest, confers.

Society had been organized in the thirteenth century and even down to the sixteenth, under the banner of Christ the King. Thus, in spite of deficiencies and imperfections, man’s divinization, through the Life that comes from the sacred Humanity of Jesus, was socially favoured. Modern society, under the influence of Satan, was to be organized on the opposite principle, namely, that human nature is of itself divine, that man is God, and, therefore, subject to nobody. Accordingly, when the favourable moment had arrived, the Masonic divnization of human nature found its expression in the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789. The French Revolution ushered in the struggle for the complete organization of the world around the new divinity–Humanity. In God’s plan, the whole organization of a country is meant to aid the development of a country is meant to aid the development of the true personality of the citizens through the Mystical Body of Christ. Accordingly, the achievement of true liberty for a country means the removal of obstacles to the organized social acceptance of the Divine Plan. Every revolution since 1789 tends, on the contrary, to the rejection of that plan, and therefore to the enthronement of man in the place of God. The freedom at which the spirit of the revolution aims is that absolute independence which refuses submission to any and every order. It is the spirit breathed by the temptation of the serpent: ‘For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened; and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ Man decided then that he would himself lay down the order of good and evil in the place of God; then and now it is the same attitude. (Father Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, p. 27.)

The United States of America was founded upon an open rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King, which means that its whole ethos is satanically-inspired. The evils that have been and continue to be advanced under the cover of law—evils that are celebrated in “popular culture” and enjoy widespread public support—are the logical consequence of the false principles upon which the whole enterprise of “American freedom” was premised. There is only one standard of human liberty: the Holy Cross, not the Declaration of Independence of the United States Constitution.

There was no need for the devil to attack Catholicism in se directly in the United States of America (admitting, obviously, that open persecution of individual Catholics and the burning of Catholic churches and convents was a major feature of the life in the United States of America until after the War between the States) as most, although not all, of this country’s Catholic bishops in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries were thoroughly imbued with the founding principles, which were extolled from the pulpit and taught as a matter of Catholic doctrine in parochial schools. Catholics thus accepted the Americanist spirit uncritically, thus coming to view Holy Mother Church and the Sacred Deposit of Faith through the eyes of “democracy,” “egalitarianism” and “liberty” rather than seeing the world and judging the things in it by the standard of the Holy Faith.

Catholics born during the height of Christendom were immersed into the language of the Holy Faith.

That is, just as children learn how to speak intelligible words by being immersed in the conversation of their parents, so is it the case that children learn about the Holy Faith by immersion even from their time in the womb as they listen to parents say their prayers, with which they, after their baptism into the Holy Faith, become more and more familiar in their infancy and childhood as part of their daily routine. Children who are surrounded by images of Our Lord, Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and other saints and who the catechism from their parents come to think in supernatural terms and thus to see themselves and the world around them through the supernatural eyes of the Holy Faith.

On the other hand, however, as children do learn by immersion, they will learn how to speak bad words from profane parents and to think exclusively in terms of the worldly, the profane, the impure, the immodest, and the indecent. This is not an exaggeration as I saw an unkempt mother with several children with her who sported a t-shirt with profanity on the front and the following phrase printed on the back: “Good Moms Say Bad Words.” I kid you not. Sure enough, the children spewed forth a steady stream of invectives when the mother cursed them for attempting to purchase something she did not want them to have. I will spare you the details of the colloquy. And, of course, most parents today plop their children down in front of the devil’s box, television, and/or leave them unattended on some kind of hand-held device to view images and sounds that predispose them to the acceptance and then the commission of grave sins as they grow older.

It used to be the case that it was necessary for those intent on inculcating an obsession with sins against Holy Purity to do so by means of explicit instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments to break down a child’s natural psychological resistance to material that is contrary to their innocence. While such “instruction” is still an important part of the adversary’s toolbox to corrupt children at an early age, it is more and more the case that many children today, having been immersed in a sewer of impurity and indecency at home, have had their innocence undermine by their own parents, either actively by bad example or passively by exposing them to the rot of popular culture.

This phenomenon has become more widespread in recent decades, but it was not entirely unknown half a century ago as I was shocked to hear an eighteen-month-old girl utter profanity when she dropped a piece of pizza pie crust on the floor from her highchair. The mother simply laughed as he used the phrase all the time in front of the child, and this mother is hardly alone as I have known others, baptized Catholics, mind you, who were ready with the foul word, which their children parroted back at them.

More seriously, though, living in a time of irreligion as we do, many children learn blasphemy at an early age and then think absolutely nothing about repeating it publicly. It is no accident that those who are not about the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Holy Trinity, and are not taught to reverence the Holy Name nor keep holy the Lord’s day and to celebrate feast days with gratitude and joy are all too ready to insult and even physically attack others whenever they feel the demonic urge to do so. Those who do not see the Divine impress within themselves will be unable to see it in others.

Many parents of the so-called “greatest generation” that survived the Depression and “won” World War II (a victory that saw half of Europe and a good chunk of Asia imprisoned by Communism and the remnants of Christendom taken over by amoral naturalists intent on eradicating Catholicism from the fabric of once Catholic Europe) lavished their children with material pleasures and creature comforts that were unheard in the past, although the prosperity of the 1920s was certainly filled with conveniences and technological innovations that paved the way for the commercialism of the 1950s.

The pull of materialism, which has been a strong current in American thought and praxis dating back to the days of the Calvinists of colonial New England and the Anglican mercantilists of Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region, was such that the goal of most Americans, including most Catholics, became focused excessively, if not exclusively, on the pursuit of the so-called “American Dream” of the acquisition, retention and expansion of material wealth and goodies a the raison d’etre of human existence and self-identification.

Many, although far from all, Catholic parents immersed their “baby boom” children in the diversions of naturalism, including sports and amusement parks, and were content to see them “cathechized” and “entertained” by the seemingly harmless programming on network television that, although inoffensive, worked a great many themes of religious indifferentism, naturalism and even feminism. It was even the case that the “envelope” was pushed on matters of feminine attire and even personal conduct in many of those programs.

Most insipidly, though, the so-called “golden age” of television in the 1950s helped to further destroy the routine of family prayer and even family conversation as the schedules of families became centered on the schedules of network and local television station programming, which featured all manner of advertisements designed to create a “need” among children to purchase the latest toys and other novelties. Many families grew apart whose members became isolated cells living under one roof, a phenomenon that is even worse today in those homes where parents are foolish enough to provide their children with their own “social networking” devices that have proven to be even more addictive and time-consuming than was television programming in its infancy sixty years ago.

The way was thus paved for the truly revolutionary 1960s, a time in which the Judeo-Masonic forces of naturalism, preying upon the passivity that its lords had sought to produce as a result of nonstop television watching and an immersion in materialism and bread and circuses, used its “asserts,” so to speak,” to help foment a theological, liturgical, and pastoral revolution that has produced at least two full generations of young, fully grown adults who have thrown off the “shackles” of all pretense of religious adherence, especially that of the one and only true Faith, Catholicism. The end result of this revolution has been the emergence of a new form of barbarism, one that features people who have no knowledge of or interest in any religion, no less the true religion. Hedonism, a word that seems to have been lost in the past three or four decades, is rampant. Indeed, it is rampant to such an extent that sports figures and other so-called “celebrities” boast openly of their immoral pursuits. 

Even when parents had learned the Faith well in parochial school by means of the Baltimore Catechism in the decades leading up to “Second” Vatican Council most of them did not seek to protect their children from the influences of a world that has always been hostile, if only subtly before manifesting such hostility quite openly, to Christ the King and His Catholic Church. Parents happily sent their children off to what they thought were safe havens in Catholic universities and colleges in the 1940s and 1950s (and thereafter, of course) and were later shocked to find that their grown children no longer believed with certitude what they had been taught in parochial school or at home.

There were many forces at work in this erosion of the sensus Catholicus among young Catholics before the “Second” Vatican Council, but once the Novus Ordo took hold and what was called Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) became “religious education,” at least on a de facto basis, the supposed “rigors” of memorization by rote were replaced with a contentless series of lessons about “love” that came replete with coloring books in the lower grades and, over time, explicit classroom instructions in matters of Holy Purity that were and remain, as noted in part one of this commentary. All knowledge of Who God is, a Trinity of three co-equal, co-Divine Persons and a pure Spirit without beginning or end Who lives outside of time and space, was erased with the misuse of the teaching that God is love.

Yes, God is love, but His love for his rational creatures is part of His Divine Nature to will our good, the ultimate expression of which is the sanctification and salvation of our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no social order within nations or anything approaching a true peace among nations.

The situation became such by the 1990s that former student of mine from Saint John’s University in the 1984-1985 academic year sent me the curriculum for a religious education class she was scheduled to teach at a Catholic high school. I read through the bilge, which was all about “God is love,” “we are love,” “we must love,” etc., without actual content of Catholic doctrine, no less of apologetics that was once standard in the best of Catholic high schools (as was the case at the Jesuit run Brooklyn Preparatory School in the 1930s when my father was a student there; the valedictorian of my father’s class of February 1938 gave an address on the Social Reign of Christ the King in Theory and the salutatorian gave an address on the Social Reign of Christ the King in Practice).

I told my former student, [Name omitted], the first thing you must understand is that your students do not know Who God is. You have to teach them basic catechetics no matter what your vapid curriculum says. Your ninth graders are clueless about First and Last Things.”

Mind you, that conversation took place over thirty-five years ago now. Those ninth graders in 1990, I am sure, have children of their own, and although I am sure my former student did as well as possible in instructing those children, the fact that they got to ninth grade in a supposedly Catholic high school, most of the children of those ninth graders thirty-five years ago know less than little about the Catholic Faith that their parents thought they knew.

There are consequences for this ignorance of Who God is, what he has revealed, and how we are to live in accord with His Divine Revelation.

There are consequences for the ignorance about the nature of Holy Mother Church, she who is the spotless, virginal mystical spouse of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head, and Mystical Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that Holy Mother Church is our magister and mater who teaches only what she has received from the Divine Redeemer. She does not have “rules” that can “change” but Our Lord’s immutable teaching.

There are consequences for ignorance about the fact that God does not conform Himself to how people live but that we must conform ourselves to the binding precepts of His Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

There are consequences when parents, having thought of nothing about living in sin during their own youth and perhaps even into their young adulthood, say nothing about their own children living in sin as more than one parent has been wonted to say that “love is never wrong.” However, it is no act of love for parents to be indifferent about or approving of that which is injurious to the sanctification and their children’s souls and even to their own souls as they shirk their responsibilities to admonish the sinner and thus become accomplices in the sins of others in one or more, if not all, of the nine ways by which one can be an accessory to others’ sins:

• 1. By counsel.
• 2. By command.
• 3. By consent.
• 7. By connivance.
• 8. By partaking.
• 4. By provocation.
• 5. By praise or flattery of the evil done.
• 6. By silence.
• 9. By defense of the ill done. 

All this has been enabled and emboldened by the conciliar revolutionaries by means of their false concepts of “mercy,” their ready adoption and institutionalization of explicit programs of instructions as to how to commit sins against Holy Purity and to “accept” perversity in the name of “diversity” and “tolerance,” sacrilegious liturgies, and a sense of religious indifferentism that views even atheism with approval and prizes natural “goodness” while disparaging the alleged “rigors” of pursuing spiritual perfection and sanctity as befits redeemed creatures.

These are just some of the reasons that the Pew Religious Landscape survey that was released a month ago shows such support among Catholics for the prevailing moral evils of the day.

There have always been dangers caused by the failure of parents to immerse their children in a love of God and His Catholic Church, admitting that there will always be some children who, despite the best efforts of their parents to train them in the Holy Faith, fall away and become prodigal children for whom their parents might shed many tears to Saint Monica for the return to the practice of the Catholic Faith.

It was to instruct parents in their obligations to educate children properly that Saint Alphonsus de Liguori preach “On the Education of Children” in a sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost:

“A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.” MATT. vii. 18.

THEN the gospel of this day tells us, that a good plant cannot produce bad fruit, and that a bad one cannot produce good fruit. Learn from this, brethren, that a good father brings up good children. But, if parents be wicked, how can the children be virtuous? Have you ever, says the Redeemer, in the same gospel, seen grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? “Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles ?” (v. 16.) And, in like manner, it is impossible, or rather very difficult, to find children virtuous, who are brought up by immoral parents. Fathers and mothers, be attentive to this sermon, which is of great importance to the eternal salvation of yourselves and of your children. Be attentive, young men and young women, who have not as yet chosen a state of life. If you wish to marry, learn this day the obligations which you can contract with regard to the education of your children; and learn also that, if you do not fulfil them, you shall bring yourselves and all your children to damnation. I shall divide this sermon into two points. In the first, I shall show how important it is to bring up children in habits of virtue; and in the second, I shall show with what care and diligence a parent ought to labour to bring them up well.

First Point. How very important it is to bring up children in habits of virtue.

1. A father owes two obligations to his children; he is bound to provide for their corporal wants, and to educate them in habits of virtue. It is not necessary at present to say more on the first obligation, than that there are some fathers more cruel than the most ferocious of wild beasts; for these do not forget to nourish their offspring; but certain parents squander away in eating and drinking, and gaming, all their property, or all the fruits of their industry, and allow their children to die of hunger. But let us come to the education, which is the subject of my discourse.

2. It is certain that a child’s future good or ill conduct depends on his being brought up well or ill. Nature itself teaches every parent to attend to the education of his offspring. He who has given them being ought to endeavour to make life useful to them. God gives children to parents, not that they may assist the family, but that they may be brought up in the fear of God, and be directed in the way of eternal salvation. ”We have,” says St. Chrysostom, ”a great deposit in children; let us attend to them with great care.” (Hom, ix., in 1 ad Tit.) Children have not been given to parents as a present, which they may dispose of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if lost through their negligence, they must render an account to God. The Scripture tells us, that when a father observes the divine law, both he and his children shall prosper. “That it may be well with thee and thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is pleasing in the sight of God.” (Deut. xii. 25.) The good or ill conduct of a parent may be known, by those who have not witnessed it, from the life which his children lead. “For by the fruit the tree is known.” (Matt. xii. 33.) “A father,” says Ecclcsiasticus, “leaves a family, when he departs this life, is as if he had not died; because his sons remain, and exhibit his habits and character. His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead; for he hath left one behind him that is like himself.” (Eccl. xxx. 4.) When we find a son addicted to blasphemies, to obscenities, and to theft, we have reason to suspect that such too was the character of the father. ”For a man is known by his children.” (Eccl. xi. 30.)

3. Hence Origen says, that on the day of judgment parents shall have to render an account for all the sins of their children. “Omnia quæcumque delinquerint filii, a parentibus requiruntur. ” (Grig., Lib. 2, in Job.) Hence, he who teaches his son to live well, shall die a happy and tranquil death. ”He that teacheth his son …when he died he was not sorrowful, neither was he confounded.” (Eccl. xxx. 3, 5.) And he shall save his soul by means of his children; that is, by the virtuous education which he has given them. ”She shall be saved through child-bearing.” (1 Tim. ii. 15.) But, on the other hand, a very uneasy and unhappy death shall be the lot of those who have laboured only to increase the possessions, or to multiply the honours of their family; or who have sought only to lead a life of ease and pleasure, but have not watched over the morals of their children. St. Paul says, that such parents are worse than infidels. “But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” (1 Tim. v. 8.) “Were fathers or mothers to lead a life of piety and continual prayer, and to communicate every day, they should be damned if they neglected the care of their children.” Would to God that certain parents paid as much attention to their children as they do to their horses! How careful are they to see that their horses are fed and well trained! And they take no pains to make their children attend at catechism, hear mass, or go to confession. “We take more care” says St. Chrysostom, “of our asses and horses, than of the children.” (Hom, x., in Matt.)

4. If all fathers fulfilled their duty of watching over the education of their children, we should have but few crimes and few executions. By the bad education which parents give to their offspring, they cause their children, says St. Chrysostom, to rush into many grievous vices; and thus they deliver them up to the hands of the executioner. ”Majoribus illos malis involvimus, et carnificum manibus damus.” (Serin, xx., de divers.) Hence, in Lacedemon, a parent, as being the cause of all the irregularities of his children, was justly punished for their crimes with greater severity than the children themselves. Great indeed is the misfortune of the child that has vicious parents, who are incapable of bringing up their children in the fear of God, and who, when they see their children engaged in dangerous friendships and in quarrels, instead of correcting and chastising them, rather take compassion on them, and say: “What can be done? They are young; they must take their course.” Oh! what wicked maxims! what a cruel education! Do you hope that when your children grow up they shall become saints? Listen to what Solomon says: “A young man, according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Prov. xxii. 6.) A young man who has contracted a habit of sin will not abandon it even in his old age. ”His bones,” says Job, “shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust.” (Job xx. 11.)

When a young person has lived in evil habits, his bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, so that he will carry them with him to death; and the impurities, blasphemies, and hatred to which he was accustomed in his youth, shall accompany him to the grave, and shall sleep -with him after his bones shall be reduced to dust and ashes. It is very easy, when they are small, to train up children to habits of virtue; but, when they have come to manhood, it is equally difficult to correct them, if they have learned habits of vice. But, let us come to the second point that is, to the means of bringing up children in the practice of virtue. I entreat you, fathers and mothers, to remember what I now say to you; for on it depends the eternal salvation of your own souls, and of the souls of your children.

 Second Point. On the care and diligence with which parents ought to endeavour to bring up their children in habits of virtue.

 5. St. Paul teaches sufficiently, in a few words, in what the proper education of children consists. He says that it consists in discipline and correction. “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.” (Ephes. vi. 4) Discipline, which is the same as the religious regulation of the morals of children, implies an obligation of educating them in habits of virtue by word and example. First, by words: a good father should often assemble his children, and instil into them the holy fear of God. It was in this manner that Tobias brought up his little son. The father taught him from his childhood to fear the Lord and to fly from sin. ”And from his infancy he taught him to fear God and to abstain from sin.” (Tob. i. 10.) The Wise Man says that a well educated son is the support and consolation of his father. “Instruct thy son, and he shall refresh thee, and shall give delight to thy soul.” (Prov. xxix. J7.) But, as a well instructed son is the delight of his father’s soul, so an ignorant child is a source of sorrow to a father’s heart; for the ignorance of his obligations as a Christian is always accompanied with a bad life. Cantipratensis relates (lib. 1, cap. 20) that, in the year 1248, an ignorant priest was commanded, in a certain synod, to make a discourse. But while he was greatly agitated by the command, the devil appeared to him, and instructed him to say: “The rectors of infernal darkness salute the rectors of parishes, and thank them for their negligence in instructing the people; because from ignorance proceed the misconduct and the damnation of many.” The same is true of negligent parents. In the first place, a parent ought to instruct his children in the truths of faith, and particularly in the four principal mysteries. First, that there is but one God, the Creator, and Lord of all things; secondly, that this God is a remunerator, who, in the next life, shall reward the good with the eternal glory of Paradise, and shall punish the wicked with the everlasting torments of hell; thirdly, the mystery of the holy Trinity that is, that in God there are Three Persons, who are only one God, because they have but one essence; fourthly, the mystery of the incarnation of the Divine Word the Son of God, and true God, who became man in the womb of Mary, and suffered and died for our salvation.

Should a father or a mother say: I myself do not know these mysteries, can such an excuse be admitted? that is, can one sin excuse another? If you are ignorant of these mysteries you are obliged to learn them, and afterwards teach them to your children. At least, send your children to the catechism. Oh! what a misery to see so many fathers and mothers who are unable to instruct their children in the most necessary truths of faith, and who, instead of sending their sons and daughters to the Christian doctrine on festivals, employ them in messages, or other occupations of little moment; and when grown up they know not what is meant by mortal sin, by hell, or eternity. They do not even know the Creed, the Pater Noster, or the Hail Mary, which every Christian is bound to learn under pain of mortal sin.

6. Religious parents not only instruct their children in these things, which are the most important, but they also teach them the acts which ought to be made every morning after rising. They teach them, first, to thank God for having preserved their life during the night; secondly, to offer to God all the good actions which they will perform, and all the pains which they shall suffer during the day; thirdly, to implore of Jesus Christ and most holy Mary to preserve them from all sin during the day. They teach them to make every evening an examen of conscience and an act of contrition. They also teach them to make every day the acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, to recite the Rosary, and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. Some good fathers of families are careful to get a book of meditations read, and to have mental prayer in common for half an hour every day. This is what the Holy Ghost exhorts you to practise. “Hast thou children? Instruct them and bow down their neck from their childhood.” (Eccl. vii. 25.) Endeavour to train them from their infancy to these religious habits, and when they grow up they shall persevere in them. Accustom them also to go to confession and communion every week. Be careful to make them go to confession when they arrive at the age of seven, and to communion at the age of ten. This is the advice of St. Charles Borromeo. As soon as they attain the use of reason make them receive the sacrament of confirmation.

7. It is also very useful to infuse good maxims into the infant minds of children. Oh! what ruin is brought upon his children by the father who teaches them worldly maxims! ”You must,” some people say to their children, “seek the esteem and applause of the world. God is merciful; he takes compassion on certain sins.” Miserable the young man who sins in obedience to such maxims. Good parents teach very different maxims to their children. Queen Blanche, the mother of St. Louis, King of France, used to say to him: “My son, I would rather see you dead in my arms than in the state of sin.” Oh! brethren, let it be your practice also to infuse into your children certain maxims of salvation, such as, “What will it profit us to gain the whole world, if we lose our own souls? Every thing on this earth has an end; but eternity never ends. Let all be lost, provided God is not lost.” One of these maxims well impressed on the mind of a young person will preserve him always in the grace of God.

8. But parents are obliged to instruct their children in the practice of virtue, not only by words, but still more by example. If you give your children bad example, how can you expect that they will lead a good life? When a dissolute young man is corrected for a fault, he answers: Why do you censure me, when my father does worse. “The children will complain of an ungodly father, because for his sake they are in reproach.” (Eccl. xli. 10.) How is it possible for a son to be moral and religious, when he has had the example of a father who was accustomed to utter blasphemies and obscenities; who spent the entire day in the tavern, in gaming and drunkenness; who was in the habit of frequenting houses of bad fame, and of defrauding his neighbour? Do you expect that your son will go frequently to confession, when you yourself approach the tribunal of penance scarcely once a year? Children are like apes; they do what they see their parents do. It is related in the fables, that a crab-fish one day rebuked its young for walking crookedly. They replied: Father, let us see you walk. The father walked before them more crookedly than they did. This is what happens to the parent who gives bad example. Hence, he has not even courage to correct his children for the sins which he himself commits.

9. But though he should correct them, by words, of what use is his correction when he sets them a bad ex ample by his acts? It has been said in the council of Bishops, that “men believe the eyes rather than the ears.” And St. Ambrose says: “The eyes convince me of what they see more quickly than the ear can insinuate what is past.” (Serm. xxiii., de S. S.) According to St. Thomas, scandalous parents compel, in a certain manner, their children to lead a bad life. ”Eos ad peccatum, quantum in eis fuit obligaverunt” (in Ps. xvi). They are not, says St. Bernard, fathers, but murderers; they kill, not the bodies, but the souls of their children. “Non parentes, sed peremptores.” It is useless for them to say: “My children have been born with bad dispositions.” This is not true; for, as Seneca says, “you err, if you think that vices are born with us; they have been engrafted.” (Ep. xciv.) Vices are not born with your children, but have been communicated to them by the bad example of the parents. If you had given good example to your sons, they should not be so vicious as they are. O brethren, frequent the sacraments, assist at sermons, recite the Rosary every day, abstain from all obscene language, from, detraction, and from quarrels; and you shall see that your sons will go often to confession, will assist at sermons, will say the Rosary, will speak modestly, and will fly from detraction and disputes. It is particularly necessary to train up children to virtue in their infancy: “Bow down their neck from their childhood;” for when they have grown up and contracted bad habits, it will be very difficult for you to produce, by words, any amendment in their lives.

10. To bring up children in the discipline of the Lord, it is also necessary to take away from them the occasion of doing evil. Hence a father must, in the first place, forbid his children to go out at night, or to go to a house in which their virtue might be exposed to danger, or to keep bad company. ”Cast out,” said Sarah to Abraham, “this bondwoman and her son.” (Gen. xxi. 10.) She wished to have Ishmael, the son of Agar the bondwoman, banished from her house, that her son Isaac might not learn his vicious habits. Bad companions are the ruin of young persons. A father should not only remove the evil which he witnesses, but he is also bound to inquire after the conduct of his children, and to seek information from domestics and from externs regarding the places which his sons frequent when they leave home, regarding their occupations and companions.

Secondly, he should take from them every musical instrument which is to them an occasion of going out at night, and all forbidden weapons which may lead them into quarrels or disputes. Thirdly, he should dismiss all immoral servants; and, if his sons be grown up, he should not keep in his house any young female servant. Some parents pay little attention to this; and when the evil happens they complain of their children, as if they expected that tow thrown into the fire should not burn. Fourthly, a father ought to forbid his children ever to bring into his house stolen goods such as fowl, fruit, and the like. When Tobias heard the bleating of a goat in his house, he said: “Take heed, lest perhaps it be stolen; restore ye it to its owners.” (Tob. li. 21.) How often does it happen that, when a child steals something, the mother says to him: “Bring it to me, my son.” Parents should prohibit to their children all games which bring destruction on their families and on their own souls, and also masks, scandalous comedies, and certain, dangerous conversations and parties of pleasure. Fifthly, a father should remove from his house romances, which pervert young persons, and all bad books which contain pernicious maxims, tales of obscenity, or of profane love.  Sixthly, he ought not to allow his children to sleep in his own bed, nor the males and females to sleep together. Seventhly, he should not permit his daughters to be alone with men, whether young or old. But some will say: “Such a man teaches my daughters to read and write, etc.; he is a saint.” The saints are in heaven; but the saints that are on earth are flesh, and by proximate occasions they may become devils. Eighthly, if he has daughters, he should not permit young men to frequent his house. To get their daughters married, some mothers invite young men to their houses. They are anxious to see their daughters married; but they do not care to see them in sin. These are the mothers who, as David says, immolate their daughters to the devil. ”They sacrifice their sons and their daughters to devils.” (Ps. cv. 37.) And to excuse themselves they will say: “Father, there is no harm in what I do.” There is no harm! Oh! how many mothers shall we see condemned on the day of judgment on account of their daughters! The conduct of such mothers is at least a subject of conversation among their neighbours and equals; and, for all, the parents must render an account to God. O fathers and mothers! confess all the sins you have committed in this respect, before the day on which you shall be judged arrives.

11. Another obligation of parents is, to correct the faults of the family. “Bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.” There are fathers and mothers who witness faults in the family, and remain silent. A certain mother was in the habit of acting in this manner. Her husband one day took a stick and began to beat her severely. She cried out, and said: “I am doing nothing. Why do you beat me?” “I beat you,” replied the husband, “because you see, and do not correct, the faults of the children because you do nothing.” Through fear of displeasing their children some fathers neglect to correct them; but, if you saw your son falling into a pool of water, and in danger of being drowned, would it not be savage cruelty not to catch him by the hair and save his life? “He that spareth the rod hateth his son.” (Prov. xiii. 24.) If you love your sons correct them, and, while they are growing up chastise them, even with the rod, as often as it may be necessary. I say, “with the rod,” but not with the stick; for you must correct them like a father, and not like a galley sergeant. You must be careful not to beat them when you are in a passion; for, you shall then be in danger of beating them with too much severity, and the correction will be without fruit; for they then believe that the chastisement is the effect of anger, and not of a desire on your part to see them amend their lives. I have also said that you should correct them “while they are growing up;” for, when they arrive at manhood, your correction will be of little use. You must then abstain from correcting them with the hand; otherwise, they shall become more perverse, and shall lose their respect for you. But of what use is it to correct children by so many injurious words and by so many imprecations? Deprive them of some part of their meals, of certain articles of dress, or shut them up in a room. But I have said enough. Dearly beloved brethren, draw from the discourse which you have heard the conclusion, that he who has brought up his children badly shall be severely punished; and that he who has trained them to habits of virtue shall receive a great reward. (Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri, Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, “On the Education of Children.”)

This is not what the conciliar revolutionaries teach, and it is not what the world teaches. The fact that the conciliar revolutionaries have made their “official reconciliation” with the world has opened up vistas of opportunities for the adversary to use his minions to miseducate Catholic children to be worldlings whose most important goals are to “eat, drink, be merry” and live prosperously, if not luxuriously, in a pluralistic society to “fit in” with everyone else by repeating with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, “Who am I to judge?”

On Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent

Today, Wednesday, March 26, 2025, marks the halfway point in the Third Week of Lent and tomorrow, Thursday, March 27, 2025, which is the Feast of Saint John Damascene and the Commemoration of the Thursday in the Third Week of Lent, is the numerical halfway point between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday (a total of forty-six days, noting that the Sundays in Lent do not count as part of the forty days of Lent).

Guided infallibly by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Holy Mother Church has constructed her Divine Office and the Lessons and Gospels at Holy Mass to teach us a continuous series of lessons during this penitential season of Lent. Today’s lessons are about the Commandments and also about obeying God because He has commanded laws to be observed and that the customs and traditions associated imposed by the Mosaic Law were being rendered null and void as they had made a demigod out of what became superstitious practices.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s section on this day includes an explication about both the Lesson and the Gospel passage:

Lesson from the Book of Exodus 20:12-24

Thus saith the Lord God: Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his. And all the people saw the voices and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mount smoking; and being terrified and struck with fear, they stood afar off, saying to Moses: Speak thou to us, and we will hear; let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die. And Moses said to the people: Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that the dread of him might be in you, and you should not sin. And the people stood afar off. But Moses went to the dark cloud wherein God was. And the Lord said to Moses: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver, nor shall you make to yourselves gods of gold. You shall make an altar of earth unto me, and you shall offer upon it your holocausts and peace-offerings, your sheep and oxen, in every place where the memory of my Name shall be.

The Church reminds us today of the divine Commandments which relate to our duties towards our neighbor, beginning with that which enjoins respect to Parents. Now that the Faithful are intent on the great work of the conversion and amendment of their lives, it is well that they should be reminded that their duties towards their fellow men are prescribed by God himself. Hence, it was God whom we offended when we sinned against our neighbor. God first tells us what he himself has a right to receive from our hands: he bids us adore and serve him; he forbids the worship of idols; he enjoins the observance of the Sabbath, and prescribes Sacrifices and Ceremonies: but at the same time, he commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and assures us that he will be their avenger when we have wronged them, unless we repair the injury. The voice of Jehovah on Sinai is not less commanding when it proclaims what our duties are to our neighbor, than when it tells us our obligations to our Creator. Thus enlightened as to the origin of our duties, we shall have a clearer view of the state of our conscience, and of the atonement required of us by Divine Justice. But if the Old Law that was written on tablets of stone thus urges upon us the precept of the love of our neighbor, how much more will not the New Law—that was signed with the blood of Jesus when dying upon the Cross for his ungrateful brethren—insist that our observance of fraternal charity? These are the two Laws on which we shall be judged; let us, therefore, carefully observe what they command on this head, that thus we may prove ourselves to be Christians, according to those words of our Savior: By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. (Luke 13:35)

GOSPEL

Sequel of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew 15:1-20

At that time: The Scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem to Jesus, and saying to him: Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answering, said to them: Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition? For God said: “Honor thy father and mother:” and “He that shall curse father or mother, let him die the death.” But you say: Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, The gift whatsoever proceedeth from me, shall profit thee; and he shall not honor his father or mother, and you have made void the commandment of God for your tradition. Hypocrites, well has Isaias prophesied of you, saying: “This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men.” And having called together the multitudes unto him, he said to them: Hear ye and understand. Not that which goeth into the mouth, defileth a man; but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. Then came his disciples, and said to him: Dost thou know that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized? But he answering, said: Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit. And Peter answering, said to him: Expound to us this parable. But he said: Are you also yet without understanding? Do you not understand, that whatsoever entereth into the mouth, goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the privy? But the things which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart, and those things defile a man. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man. But to eat with unwashed hands, doth not defile a man.

The Law that was given by God to Moses enjoined a great number of exterior practices and ceremonies; and they that were faithful among the Jews, zealously and carefully fulfilled them. Jesus himself, though he was the Divine Lawgiver, most humbly complied with them. But the Pharisees had added their own superstitious traditions to these divine laws and ordinances, and made religion consist in the observance of these fanciful inventions. Our Savior here tells the people not to be imposed upon by such teaching, and instructs them as to what is the real meaning of the external practices of the Law. The Pharisees prescribed a great many ablutions or washings to be observed during the course of the day. They would have it that they who eat without having washed their hands (and indeed the whole body, sometime during the day), were defiled, and that the food they thus partook of was unclean, by reason, as they said, that they themselves had become defiled by having come near or touched objects which were specified by their whims. According to the Law of God, these objects were perfectly innocent; but according to the law of the Pharisees, almost everything was contagious, and the only escape was endless washings! Jesus would have the Jews throw off this humiliating and arbitrary yoke, and reproaches the Pharisees for having corrupted and made void the Law of Moses.

He tells them that there is no creature which is intrinsically and of its own nature unclean; and that a man’s conscience cannot be defiled by the mere fact of his eating certain kinds of food. Evil thoughts and evil deeds, these, says our Savior, are the things that defile a man. Some heretics have interpreted these words as being an implicit condemnation of the exterior practices ordained by the Church and more especially of Abstinence. To such reasoners and teachers we may justly apply what our Savior said to the Pharisees: They are blind and leaders of the blind. From this, that the sins, into which a man falls by his use of material things, are only sins on account of the malice of the Will, which is spiritual—it does not follow that therefore, man may, without any sin, make use of material things, when God or his Church forbid their use. God forbade our First Parents, under pain of death, to eat the fruit of a certain tree; they ate it, and sin was the result of their eating. Was the fruit unclean of its own nature? No; it was a creature of God as well as the other fruits of Eden; but our First Parents sinned by eating it, because their doing so was an act of disobedience. Again, when God gave his Law on Mount Sinai, he forbade the Hebrews to eat the flesh of certain animals; if they ate it, they were guilty of sin, not because this sort of food was intrinsically evil or cursed, but because they that partook of it disobeyed the Lord. The commandments of the Church regarding Fasting and Abstinence are of a similar nature with these. It is that we may secure to ourselves the blessing of Christian Penance—in other words, it is for our spiritual interest that the Church bids us abstain and fast at certain times. If we violate her law, it is not the food we take that defiles us, but the resisting a sacred power, which our Savior, in yesterday’s Gospel, told us we are to obey under the heavy penalty which he expressed in those words: He that will not hear the Church, shall be counted as a heathen and publican. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent.)

A short passage from Saint Jerome contained in the readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office discussed the stupidity of the Pharisees in trying to upbraid God Himself in the very Flesh:

The stupidity of the Pharisees and Scribes is something extraordinary. They rebuke the Son of God because He doth not observe the traditions and commandments of men for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. It behoveth us to cleanse, not the hands of the body, but the hands of the soul, namely, our works, that we may do the commandments of God. But He answered and said unto them Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? He meeteth here their false accusation by a true. “How,” saith He, “do ye, who pass over the commandments of God, in order to keep to the traditions of men, hold that My disciples are to be rebuked, because they deem the tradition of the elders of little moment in comparison with the doing of what they know to be the Laws of God?”

Now God commanded, saying: Honour thy father and mother; and: He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say: Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother: It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. The word ‘honour’ is used in Scripture, not so much in the sense of paying salutations and services, as in that of giving alms and gifts. Honour widows, saith the Apostle, which are widows indeed. 1 Tim. v. 3. And here ‘honour’ signifieth support. So again, 17, 18: Let the Priests that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture saith: “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn” and “The labourer is worthy of his reward.”

The Lord being mindful of the helplessness, or age, or poverty of parents, had commanded their children to honour them even by giving them the necessaries of life. The Scribes and Pharisees, scrupling not to make of none effect this most benign law, and bringing in ungodliness under the very form of godliness, taught, for the benefit of unnatural children, that if any one vowed to God, Who is our very Father in heaven, whatsoever he was bound to give to his parents, the duty of discharging his debt to his heavenly Father ought to come before that which he owed to his earthly father; or, at least, that parents in such case incurred the guilt of sacrilege by taking for themselves what they knew had been made a gift to God. And so parents were left unsuccoured, and the offerings of such children, under pretence of being given to God and His temple, became the gain of the Priests. (Saint Jerome, Book II, Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. As found in Matins, Divine Office, Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent.)

What a great joy it is when children learn the Holy Faith from their parents in a truly Catholic environment and know that to obey God is a duty of love and thus can never be burdensome in the slightest. Children who have learned this lesson will, if they cooperate with the graces sent to them by Our Lady that have been won for us all by her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, strive to be faithful sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church who never surrender to the world and thus stand out as citizens of Heaven who make use of the things of this mortal world for the honor and glory of God and for their own eternal salvation.

May the Rosaries we pray today, and every day help us to be fortified in our own Lenten practices and never surrender to the forces of a world that is suffering the promotion of apostasy by pretenders dressed up in clerical clothing.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end!

May we plant some seeds for this triumph by our total consecration to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Matthew the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us. 

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.