Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini, Hosanna in Excelsis, part forty

A war that is as aimless as the man who started it.

A war with ever-changing rationalizations: obliterate nuclear weapons facilities even the Islamic Republic of Iran was not within “weeks” of possessing nuclear weapons at first, forcing the Strait of Hormuz to reopen even though it was entirely open at the start of the war nearly five months, and then back to keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons and, now, avenging the deaths of American military personnel who have been placed needlessly in harm’s way for no good purpose.

Wait!

Trump pivots again, saying he has “paused” the recent spate of thirteen straight nights of attacks upon Iranian targets in the hope that “diplomacy” can be resumed to reach a “deal,” which Iranian hardliners themselves, impressed with how they have thus far withstood the American military campaign, keep expanding the conflict regionally to increase economic pain on the United States of America and its allies by using the Houthis in south Yemen to create another shipping chokehold in the Red Sea to accompany the Iran closure of the supposedly “open” Strait of Hormuz:

WASHINGTON — Iran’s leaders are fighting each other almost as much as they’re battling the West, with some senior politicians scrambling to save US talks while the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leans into the renewed war, regional sources told The Post.

With Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei out of public view, there’s no one left to force the rival factions back into line — meaning the future of the conflict may now be decided by a power struggle in Tehran, not by Washington.

The growing divide has exposed what the sources describe as two competing centers of power inside Tehran: civilian leaders trying to preserve a fragile diplomatic track and military hardliners determined to keep up pressure through confrontation.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf want to keep dialogue with the US alive and prevent the fighting from spiraling into another full-scale regional war, the sources said.

But their authority has steadily eroded, one regional source familiar with Iran’s internal dynamics told The Post.

“They can sign [agreements], but they can’t stop the IRGC from acting or parliament from legislating around them,” the person said.

Instead of winning internal political battles, the IRGC has increasingly created “facts on the ground” through military action, the source said, while hardline lawmakers move afterward to enshrine those actions into law.

“The shift is real — now it’s becoming law, which is much harder to reverse.”

That distinction — between the politicians publicly speaking about diplomacy and the security establishment making decisions on the battlefield — is key, according to Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran Program.

“Yes, there are politicians who occasionally come out, including even Iran’s foreign minister, who talk about dialogue,” Taleblu told The Post. “But those driving the train, those with their finger on the trigger, those making some of the most important decisions continue to talk and act like escalation is what will secure their survival, not engagement.”

While Tehran has historically balanced diplomacy and military pressure simultaneously, Taleblu said recent events suggest the regime is increasingly betting on confrontation.

“There is obviously a divide in Iran,” he said. “But we have to make sure that when we look at the divide, we pay attention to who matters and what matters — and who and what matter seem to be doubling down on escalation.”

The widening split has become increasingly visible in recent weeks, the source said.

During the funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the front rows were filled with IRGC members rather than civilian officials, underscoring the military’s growing influence, according to the source.

What’s more, several televised speeches by Iran’s political leadership have been partially edited before broadcast instead of running live — raising further questions about who controls the country’s public messaging, the person added.

But the IRGC has its talons in almost every institution in Tehran, with the Iranian parliament also moving to undercut the diplomatic track.

Lawmakers backed a measure with roughly 180 of the chamber’s 290 members declaring the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding effectively dead, while separately advancing legislation introduced by lawmaker Ebrahim Azizi titled the “Strategic Action for the Security and Sustainable Progress of the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf.”

Taleblu argued the regime appears convinced war still benefits them despite suffering heavy military losses.

“They believe there are real barriers to escalation by Trump, and that there are real gains to be had by escalation,” he said. “They’re the ones who transgressed on the MOU. They’re the ones who believe every time America responds, they have the right to respond.”

That divide became increasingly apparent Tuesday, when senior Iranian political figures went to mediator Pakistan in an attempt to keep diplomatic channels open.

“They want mediation,” a regional source told The Post — adding that the civilian leadership may become more powerful now that the “IRGC knows that it won’t get weapons from any other market anymore.”

Ordinarily, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei would be expected to settle such an internal dispute — but he hasn’t been seen publicly since the Feb. 28 bombing that killed his father and placed him in power, appearing only through written statements rather than speeches, televised appearances or even family funerals.

“I think if he ever does come out of hiding — or if it’s proven that he does really exist — he would be able to rally some of the Islamic Republic’s factions just by virtue of having survived against all odds,” Taleblu said.

“That being said, the fact that he didn’t come out for his father’s funeral, the fact that he hasn’t been seen in so long as the country’s new supreme leader, tells you a lot more about who is pulling the strings,” he added.

The supreme leader’s absence has fueled uncertainty over who is truly directing Iran’s strategic decision-making, while leaving rival factions with greater room to pursue competing agendas.

“There is no one left to force the two sides into alignment,” one of the sources said.

Washington should not mistake diplomatic rhetoric from Iranian politicians for a shift in the regime’s underlying strategy, Taleblu warned.

“It’s not a question of whether we’re speaking to the wrong people,” he said. “It’s a question of what speaking gets you.” (Iran's leaders turn on each other as hardliners push for wider conflict.)

Donald John Trump caused this diabolical mess by succumbing to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sales pitch five months ago that wiping out the top Iranian leadership followed by a week or two of military strikes would open the path to “regime change” and/or to an Iranian agreement to whatever terms Trump set before them to sign.

However, even President Trump’s own advisers have warned him to stop making idle threats about escalating combat operations against because the American supply of Patriot interceptor missiles has been rapidly depleted and there is no sign that the Iranian leadership, no matter divided it may be internally, is going say “uncle” as Trump has fantasized could be the case if major attacks resumed:

President Trump has set aside, at least for now, plans to sharply escalate the American military assault against Iran, with particular concern that intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon’s already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East.

The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor, administration officials say. Mr. Trump and his top aides are also uneasy about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies who are vulnerable to Iranian attack, a global economic crunch, and growing energy and refugee crises.

The latest turn in Mr. Trump’s handling of the conflict with Iran came after a meeting on Friday with top advisers and senior members of his cabinet, according to two people briefed on the discussion.

The private deliberations have focused on the Pentagon’s shrinking inventory of Patriot interceptors and other air defenses, the officials said, discussing operational matters on the condition of anonymity. Three U.S. soldiers in Jordan were killed last Friday when a ballistic missile slipped through American air defenses fending off a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones, a senior U.S. official said.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has cautioned privately that resuming major combat operations against Iran was doable but that it would dangerously deplete interceptors available to the military’s Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, the officials said. A spokesman for General Caine declined to comment on advice the general gives the president.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said that the president has “always been consistent in saying he prefers a diplomatic solution, but he continues to retain all options if Iran continues terrorist activities in the Strait of Hormuz or against allies.” He added that after enduring crippling sanctions and repeated strikes, “it would be wise for Iran to work towards a negotiated deal; otherwise, they know what will happen.”

Mr. Trump has been wrestling with how to proceed in his nearly five-month war against Iran and specifically with how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as gas prices climb again amid the resumption of hostilities over the past two weeks. Diplomacy has broken down, and the latest round of extensive U.S. attacks do not seem to have deterred Iran militarily.

Few if any in Mr. Trump’s inner circle believed the plan to escalate was wise, said the two people briefed. One senior U.S. official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed doubts that resuming major combat operations would drive Iran back to the bargaining table.

The official said the strikes have the opposite effect of what is intended, keeping Iran cohesive and allowing Iranian leaders to focus attention on an external threat.

Fighting between the United States and Iran appeared to abate for the first time in two weeks on Saturday, but tensions remained high as hostilities flared between Saudi-backed forces and Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen. After 13 straight nights of attacks on Iran, U.S. forces did not announce any overnight strikes on Saturday.

Going into Friday’s meeting, Mr. Trump had indicated that the military was ready to carry out heavier assaults if ordered to do so even while leaving open the door to a diplomatic solution.

“Look, we’re locked and loaded,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday afternoon. “We’re ready to go, but we’re talking to them, so maybe there will be, maybe there won’t be a tipping point.”

The meeting on Friday took place as Mr. Trump faces a potential inflection point in his approach to Iran, after the collapse of a fragile cease-fire and a memorandum of understanding that was intended to bring the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table for a longer-term denuclearization.

Several Pentagon officials and U.S. military commanders said earlier this week that Mr. Trump seemed to be leaning toward approving an initial phase of a multistage bombing campaign. The campaign would counter coastal radars, anti-ship missile launchers and a fleet of small Iranian attack boats and other sites that the Pentagon says have contributed to attacks on commercial ships transiting the strait.

The Pentagon rushed more forces, weaponry and supplies to the Middle East in recent days to prepare for any escalation. The military has also damaged or destroyed an increasing number of railway bridges that civilians use but that also enable Iranian commanders to flow supplies to the southern coastal region near the strait. Increased attacks on those kinds of targets, as well as energy facilities and Iran’s nuclear sites, including Pickaxe Mountain, were also under consideration.

Mr. Trump previewed some of his discussions in an interview with Axios on Thursday, saying: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”

But by late Friday, Mr. Trump appeared to temporarily put aside the bigger bombing plans, apparently persuaded, at least in part, by his military advisers’ assessment of dwindling supplies of munitions to defend American troops in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, whose bases there have come under heavy Iranian fire in the past two weeks. A major attack would most likely have drawn a heavier Iranian retaliation, putting more pressure on U.S. air defenses.

In late April, The New York Times reported that the Pentagon had used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million apiece, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials. The situation has worsened since then, military officials said this week.

Instead, many of Mr. Trump’s advisers, including Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, say there is a plausible alternative pathway with less risk: continuing negotiations and economic pressure on Iran over a longer period of time.

It is unclear what negotiations, if any, are underway and whether any talks could overcome the apparent internal rifts in Iran’s government over whether to pursue a deal.

The recently reimposed U.S. naval blockade of ships trying to enter or leave Iranian ports has had mixed results, analysts say. The Iranians were able to resume some oil deliveries after the memorandum of understanding was signed in mid-June, mainly to China, U.S. officials said. Much of that oil is just now being delivered, so it will take time to restart the economic squeeze.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that China has reduced its crude oil purchases by approximately 40 percent in recent months, a decline he said was significantly reducing Iran’s oil revenues.

On Friday, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions against nine firms and four people in ​the business network of the Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, who is under sanctions. (Trump Holds Off on Major War Escalation Against Iran as Advisers Raise Concerns.)

The Iranian leadership, as evil as it is, has been rational in its decision-making than Donald John Trump. Indeed, the Iranian leadership has “trumped Trump, who may yet come to realize that there is no easy way of the mess he has created by starting another needless and immoral American military adventure.

Trump, despite all his pompous denials to the contrary, committed the same mistake that George Walker Bush, egged on by the late, callous Zionist war hawk named Richard Cheney, made when invading Iraq twenty-three years, four months ago. Bush the Lesser thought that he was going to get a quick victory in Iraq with Saddam Hussein’s overthrow but got bogged down in a needless, immoral and completely unconstitutional war that cost thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis their lives while lining the pockets of American contractors who were paid to rebuild the infrastructure that American bombing destroyed and then paid more to redo their rebuilding because of the shoddy materials used in the first rebuild. Got all that? In the meantime, two-thirds of Chaldean Rite Catholics fled their county never to return.

The Iraq War was Dubya Bush’s immoral “war of choice” based on the manufactured “fear” of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” that did not exist because he had used the chemical weapons given him by then United States Special Envoy to the Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld in 1983 to be used against the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War that he, Hussein, stockpiled and then used against in 1991 during his own campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in northern Iraq:

(Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983.  (National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ There is an interesting, fact-based article, replete with links to national security documents, available at: Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein.)

Isn't it amazing how yesterday's useful ally can be called later a veritable reincarnation of Adolph Hitler?

Saddam Hussein had no links to the events of September 11, 2001, that killed 2,997 people in the City of New York, New York, at the Pentagon in Alexandria, Virginia, and onboard United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed n Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The propaganda machine of the government of the United States of America, starting with then-President George Walker Bush and then-Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney and including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, told one lie after another to whip up American and international support for the Iraq War, which had been the goal of the Trotskyite neoconservatives for at least five years prior to that time (see Letter to President Clinton on Iraq). By the way, one of those Trotskyites was none other than John Bolton, who later served as Donald John Trump’s national security adviser before turning against him.

Was the United States of America to be made “safe” and Iraq to be “democratized” at the price of the shedding of the blood of Catholics and the destruction of their churches?

No good and justifiable purpose was served by the America n invasion and occupation of Iraq. The country is a mess, and the Islamic Republic of Iran made great inroads there once most of the American troops were withdrawn.

This current Iran War is Donald John Trump’s very own immoral “war of choice” based on the self-serving fear of the “imminent threat” posed by Iran being able to obtain a nuclear weapon even though he had assured us thirteen months ago the military strikes he ordered on those facilities had obliterated them.

George Walker Bush’s doctrine of preemptive war has been embraced by Donald John Trump, who promised to America, not Israel and its Greater Israel projects, first.

The amorality of this rotten, immoral, and completely unconstitutional enterprise has become so transparent that the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio reacted as follows to Iran’s foreign minister’s threat of responding to the American military attacks with an “eye for an eye”:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned early Thursday that President Trump is prepared to direct an outsized military response to Iranian aggression as the two sides continue to exchange fire nearly five months into the conflict.

Rubio responded to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s statement that Tehran’s policy is an “eye for an eye” in comments to reporters at a summit held by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Manila, Philippines. 

“The president’s policy is a head for an eye,” he said. “I mean honestly, that’s what it’s going to be. I mean, they will pay a very heavy price for the things they’re doing.” (Marco Rubio warns the US is prepared for heavy retaliation against Iran.)

So much for the following words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:

Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.  37 But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil.  38 You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth  [Matthew 5:38]  39 But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other:  40 And if a man will contend with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him.

41 And whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two,  42 Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away.  43 You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thy enemy.  44 But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you:  45 That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.

46 For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this?  47 And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this?  48 Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5: 36-48.)

Bishop Richard Challoner offered the following commentary on verse thirty-nine:

[39] "Not to resist evil": What is here commanded, is a Christian patience under injuries and affronts, and to be willing even to suffer still more, rather than to indulge the desire of revenge: but what is further added does not strictly oblige according to the letter, for neither did Christ nor St. Paul turn the other cheek. St. John 18., and Acts 23.

A just war, which the Iran war is not for reasons I have outlined several times in this long series, is fought as a last resort and will, of course, involving the targeting of enemy forces in the pursuit of just end, but whatever enemy troops are injured or captured must be treated according to the moral law and not according to a spirit of an “eye for an eye.”

Those engaged in combat operations are legitimate targets of military strike in the pursuit of just ends, but it is important not to revel in the casualties and fatalities war nor to believe that even a nation, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, that is unjust of its nature is not going to defend its own military personnel or citizens once attacked. Thus, the Iranian leadership considers American military personnel to be legitimate targets and for either President Trump or Secretary Rubio to act as though that the Iranians are not acting rationally in this regard is truly duplicitous and hypocritical.

Mind you, no American citizen wants to see American military personnel attacked or killed. Of course not, and the way to protect our troops is not to place them in harm’s way needlessly during an unjust war started by the foolish presumptions of men who do not realize that violating the principles of the Just War Theory always results in the needless deaths of human beings.

The Iran War has nothing to do with American national security, but it has everything to do with the security of Israel and the realization of its Greater Israel project.

No baptized Catholic, including Marco Rubio, should go around speaking as though the words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ are be cast aside in warfare. As Bishop Challoner pointed out, evil can and must be opposed. However, to act as though one’s own troops are immune from being attacked is to ignore reality and to escape facing the consequences of what happens when unjust military actions are undertaken.

I want to make several important stipulations by way of reiteration before concluding.

First, the Islamic Republic of Iran is indeed an outlaw regime that has been led by faithful Mohammedans since it was proclaimed on April 1, 1979, following the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, that has terrorized its own citizens and “infidels” in other countries. It is an outlaw nation whose false religion shapes its leaders’ collective determination to eliminate the Zionist State of Israel and its chief Western enabler, the government of the United States of America, aka “The Great Satan” as it was called by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. No believing Catholic can have any sympathy for Iran’s barbarous leadership or make any excuses for its terrorist acts and violations of international law.

Second, the Zionist State of Israel is itself an outlaw nation that has been led by Christophobic racialists from its founding on May 1, 1948, that has used genocidal policies against Palestinians from that date to the present time and is now engaged in the final stages of “ethnic cleansing” in both Gaza and the West Bank in full violation of agreements into which its leaders have entered and, of course, in violation of both the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

Let me repeat myself so as not to be misunderstood: Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of fellow Zionist mass murderers have taken full advantage of this current conflict to effect their Greater Israel project by wiping out the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank. That is what this is all about, and Donald John Trump has not said one word about this.

Not only that, the treacherous Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to start military operations in the West Bank to protect illegal Israeli “settlers” after two “hikers” were killed after they had crossed into Palestinian territory there:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday ordered a sweeping crackdown across the West Bank, including increased troop deployments, new checkpoints, and expanded counterterrorism operations, after two Israelis were killed in a shooting near Gilad Farm.

According to the IDF, a group of Israeli civilians had illegally crossed into Palestinian Authority-controlled territory while hiking in the area, leading to a confrontation with local Palestinians. The military said Palestinians began throwing rocks before one of them opened fire.

The two Israelis killed were later identified as 32-year-old Master Sergeant (Res.) Benayahu Melet, a member of Gilad Farm's emergency response squad who was killed after rushing to aid the hikers, and 27-year-old IDF Maj. Yuval Ezra, an artillery battery commander.

Following the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir held a security assessment to discuss Israel's response, the Prime Minister's Office said.

"We will act strongly against terrorists and their proxies, and we will not allow terrorism in Judea and Samaria to raise its head," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu and Katz later announced five immediate measures: demolishing the home of the suspected attacker; expanding counterterrorism operations in villages described as "hotbeds of terror," including seizing weapons and revoking work permits, reinforcing IDF deployments across the West Bank, establishing additional checkpoints, and accelerating the authorization of existing farms and the establishment of new ones.

The two also stressed that security forces must be allowed to operate "freely and with full force" against terrorism without interference.

Shin Bet chief warns Israelis not to 'take the law into their own hands'

Shin Bet Director David Zini visited the scene and held a situational assessment with agency and IDF commanders, describing the attack as "grave and painful."

"We are working tirelessly, shoulder to shoulder with the commanders of the Central Command and the division, as well as IDF commanders and soldiers, to thwart terrorism in the sector," Zini said.

At the same time, he urged Israelis not to retaliate independently following the clashes in the area.

"I call on the public not to take the law into their own hands and to place their trust in the IDF and the Shin Bet, whose purpose and duty are to protect them," he said. (Benjamin Netanyahu orders West Bank crackdown after two Israelis killed in terror attack.)

This is all part of Netanyahu’s “Greater Israel Project” that is founded upon the liquidation of all non-Jews from Gaza and the West Bank, repeating in both places what the Zionist founders of Israel did in the 1948 by displacing and imprisoning Palestinians whose families had lived there for centuries. Any opposition to Israeli policies is concerned “terrorism,” a pretext that is used to in start the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank after doing such a smash job in its ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has included destroying most residential buildings in Gaza City.

Here are more updates about the situations in Gaza and the West Bank:

• A deadly shootout in the occupied West Bank killed at least four Palestinians after settlers entered an off-limits area without coordinating with the army. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed — setting off a spree of settler attacks.
• Israeli-Palestinian human rights group B’Tselem and 19 other Israeli human rights organisations appealed to the international community to take immediate action to stop escalating violence by settler militias and the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank.
• Several Palestinians were wounded in a violent attack by Israeli settlers on the village of Surra, near Nablus. Israeli settlers fired live ammunition at Palestinians in confrontations in Urif, south of Nablus.
• The Palestinian presidency condemned settler “terrorism” and held the Israeli government responsible for the escalation in the occupied West Bank.
• Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said the Israeli government “is pushing the West Bank towards explosion”.
• Zaher Jabarin, the Hamas chief in the occupied West Bank, says Palestinian bloodshed in Gaza and the West Bank “will not go in vain”, stressing that resistance against the Israeli occupation will continue.
• 23m ago

 (20:30 GMT)

MSF condemns Israeli army’s storming of Nablus hospital

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says it is “deeply alarmed” by reports of the raid on Nablus Specialised Hospital, as well as broader settler attacks and Israeli raids across the occupied West Bank.

“These violent incidents in Nablus are not isolated. They sit within a wider pattern of Israeli raids, state-sponsored settler violence, the disruption of essential services, and mounting pressure on civilians and healthcare”, a statement from the NGO’s head of mission in Palestine, Filipe Ribiero, says.

“The protection of healthcare facilities must be respected. They must remain accessible to people in need. It is unacceptable for hospitals, ambulances, staff, and patients to be targeted by violence anywhere in Palestine”, the statement added.

Israeli soldiers close entrance of Aaba al-Sharqiya village in occupied West Bank

Wafa news agency reports that the Israeli army piled earth mounds in front of the western entrance to the village, effectively closing it.

Wafa cited Burhan Azmouti, head of the local village council.

Israeli forces have arrested wounded Palestinians in a hospital as they shut off Nablus following today’s deadly settler attack, which killed four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers.

The raids follow Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu announcing a series of ‘forceful’ measures in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian presidency has condemned settler “terrorism” and says in a statement it holds the Israeli government responsible for the escalation in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency has reported.

The statement accuses the Israeli government of providing “financial and political support to settler gangs to escalate their terrorism against citizens in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and to implement the forced displacement plan, while it continues its war on our people in the Gaza Strip, despite the declaration of a ceasefire”.

Israeli forces have been saying they are conducting more research and operations to try and look for more people who have been involved in the incident. So far, we are talking about four Palestinians killed and one Israeli, according to the Israeli sources. We’re seeing massive tension unfolding here, with road blocks and road closures.

Israeli settlers have also launched an attack near Jericho, stabbing one Palestinian man.

What we call “revenge attacks” happen after these settler incidents or after the killing of certain people here in the occupied West Bank, but then again these Israeli settlers have already been attacking Palestinian villages and towns without really needing any excuse to do so.

Since the beginning of this year, according to the Palestinian health ministry, 86 Palestinians have been killed, 21 of those by Israeli settlers.

And these settlers know that there is no accountability; they have full impunity to keep on attacking Palestinians, and that’s why we’re seeing these waves of attacks becoming bigger, more prominent, more organised. Organised in a way to push Palestinians out of their homes, and to take over more and more land.

There are a lot of Israeli police, Israeli forces, surrounding the village declaring a siege, not just on Tal, but also in Nablus. Altogether, we could not get inside the village or the neighbouring villages because of the nature of the closure that the Israeli forces have imposed.

Now, we’re talking about a siege, but we’re also talking about expected settler attacks, not just in Tal, but in the surrounding villages.

We’ve been seeing settlers on our way here gathering in what we usually see following any incident. We see settlers attacking Palestinians, although Palestinians will tell you that Israeli settlers do not need an excuse to start attacking Palestinian homes and villages, and in fact we’ve been seeing these settler attacks on the rise.

And now, when we talk about today’s incident, according to Palestinians from Tal, they say Israeli settlers started opening fire on Palestinians in the area.

But according to Israeli forces, they say it was an attack on Israeli hikers who were in the area.

As the bigger picture unfolds and as we’ve been covering this story for so many years, we know that these settlers do not come in peace, they come not just to instigate tension, not just to provoke Palestinians, but sometimes to explore the area in preparation for building more illegal Israeli settlements, outposts.

Now, according to the Israeli narrative, they say that one Palestinian managed to take the weapon of some of the Israeli guards who were there to protect some of the Israeli settlers, and that’s when the tension escalated further. But according to Palestinians, it was the settlers who started by opening fire and attacking Palestinians.

Israeli government issues order for land seizure north of occupied West Bank’s al-Bireh

The city’s municipality has issued this update on its Facebook account.

“The Israeli occupation authorities have issued a new military order to seize lands north of the city of Bir al-Bireh, including the lands of Bir al-Bireh located west of the town of Beitin and the eastern villages: Ayn Yabroud and Dura al-Qura, under the pretext of ‘military purposes’.”

The area to be seized is equal to 41.8 dunams, (41,800 square metres). The order will remain in effect until 31/12/2028. (Updates: Israeli settlers attack West Bank, shooting leaves six dead | Occupied West Bank News.)

The Israeli actions in the West Bank have been overshadowed by the genocide its military forces continue to commit in Gaza and its military’s destruction of occupation of most of southern Lebanon, but those actions are dreadfully horrific:

I asked you to cut off your arm, would you do it?

What if I pointed out that that your arm regularly punched a neighbour in the face so violently that it broke their nose and teeth, and left them unconscious? Would you cut your arm off then?

I’m guessing the answer to both questions is a firm, “No.”

Which is exactly why the European Union, Britain and the United States have precisely no intention of severing their support for Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, however violent the Jewish colonisers who live on stolen Palestinian land prove to be.

For decades, settler militias – backed by Israeli soldiers – have beaten up Palestinians, shot them, poisoned their wells, chopped down their olive groves, torched their homes, all in an attempt to ethnically cleanse them from their historic homeland.

The relentless expansion of these illegal settlements has left any hope of a two-state solution in tatters. The West Bank is now an archipelago of Palestinian villages and towns isolated from one another by marauding violent settlers, apartheid roads only for Jews, steel and concrete barriers, and army checkpoints.

All of this has happened in full view of western states over many decades. The International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, ruled back in 2004 – nearly a quarter of a century ago – that these Jewish settlements violated international law and needed to be dismantled.

It reiterated that demand in a decision two years ago in which it identified Israel as an apartheid state ruling over Palestinians. It warned states to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assists in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

And yet the West has done nothing meaningful year after year as the settlements have stolen more land from Palestinians, made their lives there ever more miserable, and trashed any chance of the West’s supposed ambition of two states living alongside each other.

Remember this when Israel’s apologists tell you to wait for the same court’s definitive ruling – in a year or two, or maybe three – on what it deemed in early 2024 to be a “plausible” genocide in Gaza, just three months into Israel’s mass slaughter there.

Not only will any such ruling be far too late to make any difference to the victims of the genocide, but the US, Britain and Europe will do precisely no more to punish Israel for this crime of crimes – one we can see for ourselves without an ICJ ruling – than they have done in punishing Israel for the settlements.

Punching fist

Why? Because most western states no more wish to impose a penalty on Israel for its crimes than you would want to amputate a healthy arm.

If they refuse to lift a finger to stop a live-streamed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, why on earth would anyone imagine they are ready to do anything to stop Israel’s violent settlers ethnically cleansing the West Bank?

The settlements are as deeply integrated into Israel as your arm is attached to your shoulder. And in turn, Israel is as much the punching fist of the imperial West’s war machine as the City of London – and its former tax-haven colonies – are the beating heart of the imperial West’s financial machine.

Western elites cannot imagine a world without Israel as their military thug in the oil-rich Middle East any more than you can imagine life without your arm.

That explains why no one really believed that EU foreign ministers, meeting once again this week to discuss banning settlement products – the bare minimum they have long been obligated to do under international law – would reach an agreement.

More than 100 legal scholars had earlier written to the European Commission’s top trade and foreign policy officials stressing the EU’s “international legal obligation”.

But as everyone predicted, EU ministers kicked the can down the road – until at least October, when they agreed to more talks about talks.

The EU has been delaying meaningful action on dealing with the settlements since at least 2004, when the ICJ ruled them illegal. . . .

Those settlers did not end up in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by accident. Most were encouraged there by the Israeli state with offers of cheap housing, lower mortgage rates and higher funding of educational and other municipal services.

Note too that this abject failure relates to Israel’s explicit goal in expanding its settlements: to eviscerate the two-state solution the West says it craves as the only way to bring peace to the region.

The fact is Europe, Britain and the US have no interest in the two-state solution. If they did, they would have used the ICJ ruling in 2004 as grounds to ban settlement products, give that ban real teeth, and threaten Israel with a loss of all preferential trade with the West until it abided by international law and removed all obstacles to Palestinian statehood, including the settlements.

They did none of this because that was never their intention.

Their only concern is keeping Israel – their pit bull in the Middle East – fed and watered.

If Israel wants the settlements to continue expelling Palestinians off their lands until there are no Palestinians left on those lands, then the West is not going to naysay it.

Just as if Israel wants to continue deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza for death, as a United Nations inquiry recently determined, then the West will turn a blind eye to that too.

If Israel’s soldiers and Jewish settler militias want to take a US Congressperson hostage in the West Bank, as they briefly did to Democrat politician Ro Khanna last week, no western leader is going to make a fuss about it.

Israel may be a rogue state but it is a rogue state made entirely in the western elite’s image. The West’s only real concern is in ensuring its own publics don’t realise, as they watch a genocidal state disappear the Palestinians, that they are looking into the mirror. (The West Won't Punish the Settlements. Its Two-State Solution Was Always a Sham.)

No believing Catholic can have any sympathy for the genocidally murderous racialists who govern the Zionist State of Israel, whose very existence is in defiance of Christ the King Himself.

The third stipulation is that the one American presidential administration after another has turned a blind eye to the genocidal policies of the Zionist State of Israel in order to “pacify” a Mohammedan nation that has no intention of being pacified.

The best way to pacify Iran is to storm Heaven with Rosaries for the conversion of its leadership and its people to the true Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can never be a truly just social order at home nor a stable peace among nations.

Finally, Donald John Trump is engaging in a fool’s crusade against the Iranian nuclear program in the name of “making the world safer” when his refusal to enforce the Comstock Law has allowed untold thousands upon thousands of innocent babies to be killed by the human pesticide, mifepristone and its equivalents.

The world will never be a safe place as long as babies are not safe in their mothers’ wombs and as long as patients are not safe from being declared “brain dead” or having their lives ended by such medical practices as starvation and dehydration, palliative care/hospice and direct euthanasia/suicide/assisted suicide.

Furthermore, there can be a truly lasting peace when large numbers of men worldwide sin unrepentantly and then, emboldened by the devil by their persistence in such sins, celebrate them publicly and enshrine them under the cover of the civil law.

God the Holy Ghost saw fit to instruct us in Sacred Scripture, including in the passage from the Book of Proverbs:

[34] Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable. (Proverbs 14: 34.)

Christ the King will not be mocked. He will suffer the sins of men so that they and their nations might be brought to repentance. He is not, however, indifferent to that which caused Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross, sin, and that wounds the Church Militant on earth and impedes the pursuit of the true common temporal good of men and their nations.

Those in civil rule must exercise their authority for the cause of Christ the King and His true Church, a cause that is synonymous with the common temporal good of society, something that Silvio Cardinal Antoniano explained over five hundred forty years ago:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, as quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Do you have any better ideas?

I may not the brightest bulb in cyberspace but I know enough not to argue with the truths expressed in the Book of Proverbs, by Silvio Cardinal Antoniano over four hundred forty-two years ago in The Christian Education of Youth (available online in the Italian language at Tre libri dell'educatione christiana dei figliuoli), and by Pope Saint Pius X one hundred sixteen years ago.

The reform of societies must start with the reform of individual lives, and for this we need the help of Our Lady’s graces. There can be no true social order when men have cast off the sweet yoke of her Divine Son’s Social Kingship over them and their nations and wallow in the pig stye of their unrepented sins, no less celebrate them with abandon and live just a cut above—and with far less clothing, I should note—than the barbarians of yore.  

Pray to Our Lady through her Most Holy Rosary for the peace of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the Middle East and everywhere else in the world as we beg her to help us reform our own lives by making reparation for our sins by offering up the sufferings of this present to the Throne of the Most Holy Trinity as the consecrated slaves of the same Christ the King through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

For, as has been repeated throughout this series, all most must proclaim the following words but with one voice:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dóminus, Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua. Hosánna in excélsis. Benedíctus, qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in excélsis.

Pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary for the "peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."

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 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.

Appendix

Father Francis X. Weninger’s Three Sermons for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

First Sermon

"As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept." Luke 19, 41.

Jesus wept! At the sight of tears we are irresistibly impelled to interrogate the weeper as to the cause ot his grief. This is especially the case if conscience lifts up its accusing voice, and in warning accents reminds us that we are not wholly innocent in producing those signs of sorrow, and that there is no need for us to ask. If we are moved at the sight of grief in a creature like ourselves beloved in Christ what grief should fill our hearts at the thought that Jesus wept; and that our sins and ingratitude had their full share in drawing tears from those divine and pitying eyes! Holy Scripture mentions three different places where Jesus was moved to tears. The first was within sight of the fair but ill-fated city of Jerusalem. The second, by the sepulcher of Lazarus, as he gazed upon the corpse of that beloved friend, who but a few short days before had walked the earth in the strength and beauty of manhood; but upon whom the withering blight of the grave has fallen now. Jesus shed tears upon the cross, and with great vehemence, as we are told by St. Paul. At each of these places we might, had we been present, have exclaimed: "Lord, why weepest thou?" for most certainly we, in a double sense, have part in those sacred tears.

In the first place, by our sins we have often given occasion to the tears of our divine Lord; and secondly, if we are willing we can derive the greatest benefit from them.

I will first present for your consideration Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, and put the question: "Lord, why weepest thou?" Mary, whoso often didst weep, and for the same reason as that which drew tears from the eyes of thy divine Son, obtain for us from God a portion of that compassion which filled thy heart! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

As Jesus drew near the city He wept. As I have already said, at the sight of a person in tears, we inquire into the cause of his sadness. Much greater then should be our desire to ponder well on the motives which caused our Savior's tears to flow, knowing as we do, that those tears, each one of which was more precious far than the rarest gem, were shed for us-- for you, for me, for every soul created by God, that, falling upon our hearts, they might soften them, and bring us to true sorrow for our sins.

Our anxiety to know why the mourner weeps becomes more intense when the tears fall from the eyes of one who is bound to us by the tie of kindred or of love, and who, therefore, exerts a powerful influence upon our will. This is especially so if we can remove the cause of grief. Such is the known and acknowledged effect of tears. Nay, they frequently affect the beholder to tears also. Witness the Roman poet who said in the name. of the whole human race: "If you wish me to weep, then should you weep first." Yes, these tokens of inward grief frequently possess greater moral influence than the eloquence which flows in burning words from the heart to the lips of the most earnest speaker.

Behold that father whose beloved son has forgotten the lessons of piety he learned at his mother's knee, and who, seeming to forget and despise the tender love of that mother, and the constant care of his father, treats their advice with contempt and indifference. Exerting the remnant of his paternal authority, the father insists that the son should accompany him to the priest, who also exerts his utmost to move that obdurate heart, but in vain, and in silence they return to their homes.

But see, the sorrowing father goes before a crucifix and prays. The wayward son, from his own apartment, looks on, unseen, and although he knows well that those petitions are for him he is still unmoved. Suddenly the prayer is hushed, and no sound breaks the silence save the tears and sobs which have burst forth from a heart unable longer to restrain its sorrow. No prayer comes from that father's lips, but he throws himself on his knees before the image of the crucified One, and silently implores Him to speak again to the heart of his child. And, my dear brethren, those tears fall upon the hard soil of that sinful heart. No longer unmindful of the voice of grace, he hastens to his father's side, crying out: "Forgive, and help me to obtain God's forgiveness!"

Look at that poor mother, whose only daughter has begun to neglect her religious duties, and is entirely absorbed in the fleeting pleasures of the world. Her entreaties seem to have no effect, and, ceasing them for awhile, she has recourse to prayer alone. The daughter, returning from a scene of dissipation, beholds her mother kneeling before the little crucifix, which surmounts the altar in that oratory where, in happier years, she, too, had loved to pray. The wayward child looks on unmoved, no thought of her mother's care over her infant years and up to the present time comes over her heart; but, with a smile for the folly which leads any one to spend the hours of night in prayer, she turns to go. But, lo! the sudden silence arrests her steps, and, gazing within, she sees her mother weeping bitterly, and feels that it is for her. The sight of those tears which bedew her mother's pale and anguished face is too much for her; she seeks her weeping parent's side, and, assuring her of her sorrow, promises to lead a better life.

There is a man who steels his heart against every appeal of charity, and turns a deaf ear to the petitions of the poor. He turns in disgust from the cripple, who, at the street-corner, stretches forth his hand to solicit alms. Passing on, his attention is fixed upon a woman, who, pale and wan, and robed in mourning garb, crouches on a door-step, holding in her arms a dying child, and neither lifts her eyes nor asks for alms. She is oblivious to all except her child, which is suffering, perhaps, from some contagious disease. This man, who refused to listen to the clamorous petition of the crippled mendicant, stops to inquire into the case of this sorrowing mother, but his questions meet with scarce any reply, for her dim and sunken eyes, from which the tears fall fast, can see naught but her little child. That cold heart is touched and softened, and placing in the mother's hand a piece of glittering gold, he hurries on without waiting to hear her grateful thanks.

Dearly beloved in Christ! if such an effect follow from the tears of frail mortals like ourselves, what power should be possessed by those which Jesus wept?

Christians, could you but look up and behold in this pulpit your Saviour weeping, how deeply would not your hearts be moved! With what feeling you would cry out: "O, dearest Lord! why dost Thou weep?" To this question Christ replied, and, as the fathers remark, He spoke not only to Jerusalem, but to all the sons of men, typified through Jerusalem, the city of God. Our divine Lord has given three reasons for His tears. Let each one ask himself the question: Do these reasons concern me or not? and what can I say to the Lord to assure Him of my fidelity?

So does Jesus complain. He beholds at a glance the millions who were reconciled to Him when arrayed in the white robes emblematic of the innocence to which they aspired; the waters of baptism were poured upon their foreheads, and in each of those souls He beheld a Jerusalem, a city of peace. But later on, when that baptismal innocence had become tarnished, and the grace which was meted out for their salvation, abused and trampled upon, what a terrible sight for Him by Whom those precious souls were created and redeemed! Children of God and heirs of heaven through the sacrament of baptism and now children of the devil and travelers on the road which leads to eternal woe--oh, can we wonder that Jesus wept?

Ask yourselves, Christians, and be not deceived by the enemy of your salvation, whether you, too, have not given cause for some of those tears! Have you not rendered yourselves guilty in His sight of grievous sin? Have you always been careful to wipe away those divine tears by true repentance and a thorough change of life? If you are still in a state of sin, delay not to console the heart of your weeping Saviour by a good and sincere confession!

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often did I wish to gather thy children as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, but thou wouldst not?"

Here, too, while lamenting over Jerusalem, Jesus beheld the condition of the lukewarm and tepid Christian, who, turning away from the practices of religion, is in great danger of entering the broad and pleasant road which leads to hell. At the thought of the many graces which that soul would receive and abuse, Jesus wept.

Examine yourselves; has not Jesus reason to weep for you, O Christians, for whom a loving Saviour suffered and died? During how many years, and in how many ways has the Lord been calling and watching for you? He has called you to the practice of virtue, to a life of holiness; but as yet, perhaps, in vain. If so, let me entreat you no longer to disregard His voice, but to give Him from this moment an undivided heart.

Jesus weeps, and His plaintive cry is: "Jerusalem, thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straighten thee on every side, and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone." The prophetic vision of Jesus beheld the destruction of the souls whose salvation He had purchased with His precious blood. Will you grieve His sacred Heart by being among the number? Say to Him, rather: "No, dearest Lord and Saviour, those tears shall not be shed in vain, for sincere repentance shall cause my own to flow; and thus, through the memory of those precious drops of sorrow, and the infinite merits of Christ, may my soul at last reach the home of eternal bliss!" Amen!

Second Sermon

"And when He drew near, seeing the city, He wept over it." Luke 19, 41.

Jesus wept, as Jerusalem, the beautiful, came into view, but it was not alone the sorrows of that ill-fated city which drew tears from His eyes; for, as I have before stated, Jerusalem is an emblem of the human soul, the literal meaning of the word being "City of Peace." The soul, as it came from God, on the day of its creation, in perfect harmony with Him, was indeed at peace; and, after the fall, through the merits of Christ, such is again its condition as soon as it is supernaturally united with Him by the regenerating waters of baptism.

Would to God that all who have had the happiness of being united with the holy Church by baptism, would persevere in their innocence unto the end! Would to God, at least, that each fallen soul, if a child of the Church, would shrink from remaining for years and years in a state of sin and rebellion against God, and hasten to the refuge of the tribunal of penance, so aptly styled a second baptism!

But the Gospel mentions still another time when tears were forced from the eyes of our blessed Lord. And where was this? Where else did our Saviour weep? The place, my dear friends, was one, the very name of which must appeal with more eloquence to your hearts than could the most pathetic sermon; for it was the spot whereon the Saviour' s cruel sufferings for our sins were consummated Mount Calvary! This most patient Redeemer, this most loving Saviour, this meek and innocent Lamb of God wept, because, looking down the long vista of years, which would witness the birth and death of millions, for whose salvation He hung upon the cross, He saw that many, in spite of all He had endured, would be forever lost!

Mary, who, under "the world's redeeming wood," didst unite the sorrow which oppressed thy maternal heart with the anguish of thy Son, by those tears which thou didst shed, grant that the words which I address unto thy children, today, may bring forth fruit a thousand-fold! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, for the greater honor and glory of God!

Jesus wept on the cross, "with a strong cry, and tears," as St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, tells us. And how, indeed, could it be otherwise? As the Saviour, Who was from all eternity chosen to redeem the human race, He had, as man, the most feeling, the most tender, the most compassionate heart. He alone could compute how many tears of compassion and mediation He shed for us, not only for the entire human race, but for every soul in particular, during His life, offering those tears in union with His prayers to His eternal Father.

This was especially so when He completed the work of redemption upon the cross. He beheld from that cross the total misery in which sin had plunged the children of men, as well as the horror of each individual sin. He, and He only, the Judge of the living and the dead, realized the number and atrocity of the sins which would corrupt the world. What motive could be more powerful for His sacred heart to be oppressed with anguish, than that which was found in the sad truth that those sins would be so many outrages committed against His heavenly Father!

His infinite merits, however, could offer compensation for them, no matter how heinous, if only man, by his co-operation with them, would resolve to avail himself of them, and work out his salvation. Could Christ have been consoled by this sight, He would not have wept upon the cross; or, at least, instead of tears of anguish, He would have shed tears of joy.

But, as King of the Prophets, before Whose all-seeing eye the most secret things are manifest, He beheld the innumerable souls who would be lost in the flames of hell! Hence those tears of utter sorrow such as were never shed before or since. And what more did the prophetic vision of Jesus show Him? That numbers of the children of men, by their own fault, not only would not participate in His sacrifice and merits, but, to their greater torment and perdition, would abuse them. Can we wonder that, when the conviction of all that was to happen overwhelmed the Sacred Heart with the concentrated agony of Gethsemane and Golgotha, those bitter tears were forced from His dying eyes?

Oh! what are all the tears which, since the world began, have been shed by sorrowing husbands and wives, parents and children, compared to those which fell when Jesus wept? Souls redeemed by Him, who listen to my voice, console Him by tears like unto those which Mary Magdalen and St. John wept, as they stood beneath the cross.

If the thought of the many who would fling away the benefits of His sufferings so grieved our divine Saviour that He wept, His tears flowed still more freely when, from the cross, He saw His weeping mother, the weeping disciple, the weeping penitent; but these tears were full of sweetness. If you would console our Lord, and show Him that His merits are not, through your own fault, lost upon you, mingle your tears with those of the three who loved Him so well.

To understand this better, we need but to consider what tears are those which come from the heart of a Christian who believes and loves and hopes; who reflects that they are united with all that encourages and strengthens us so to live that, through the merits of Christ, our sanctification and salvation shall be secured. In this regard they are tears of devotion, compassion, and reparation.

True devotion is that of which Christ says that it is a prayer in spirit and in truth; that is, a prayer of meditation upon the truths revealed by faith. St. Paul says: "Let us draw near (God) . . . in fullness of faith." One whose faith is very lively, is easily moved to tears by the consideration of what faith teaches concerning our eternal destination, our fall and redemption through Christ. It was thus with Mary Magdalen beneath the cross. She contemplated the greatness of the infinite mercy of God, who, in order to rescue the sinner, sacrificed His only-begotten Son. Oh! how deeply did this thought affect her as she looked up to her beloved Saviour!

Christian, do you wish to dry the tears of Jesus? Ponder well, and take deeply to heart these truths: Who is He? What has He done for you? What glorious rewards has He promised? and you will shed tears of devotion which will strengthen you, for you are required not only to believe, but to live according to holy faith.

We are also moved to tears by compassion for the misery of others, especially if we have been the cause of their sorrow, and if they are united to us by the bonds of friendship or of blood. Mary Magdalen, at the foot of the cross, realized these feelings to the utmost. She saw the painful wounds of our Lord, and conscience vividly reminded her that her sins had inflicted many of them upon Him, Who was at once her Father, Brother, Friend, the Spouse of her soul!

Ransomed soul of man! ponder this well, comfort Jesus by your tears of compassion, and you will have every reason to cherish the hope that you will be saved! Weep for His sorrows, weep for the danger to which man's salvation is ever exposed! What reason we have to elevate our tearful gaze to heaven, with the ejaculation: "Lord, save us!" God will not be unmindful of your prayers and tears; for the petition of the faithful heart is always heard.

The last motive which should excite our tears is, reparation. If we have offended One to whom we owe the happiness of our lives, how grieved should we be! Thus it was with Mary Magdalen. The sins of her whole life rose up before her spiritual vision, as she stood at the foot of the cross. Imitate her, beloved in Christ, and be assured that Jesus will not be unmindful of your sorrow, but will blot out your guilt, and then in you will be verified the words: "They who sow in tears will reap in joy!"-- Amen!

Third Sermon

 "And when He drew near, seeing the city, He wept over it."--Luke 19, 41.

Jesus wept. Holy Scripture gives us no record that Jesus was ever seen to laugh, and, in truth, it would seem out of place that the Incarnate Wisdom of God should ever do so. This is plain to us, since the mission of Christ on earth was so essentially one of mercy and divine compassion that it would rather call for tears. Christ consummated the work of Redemption with abundant means for all mankind to secure their salvation; and yet, in such a manner did the divine economy arrange all things, that man retained his free will either to obey or to reject the happiness that might be his. But, alas! how many abuse the grace of God, and stain their souls by mortal sin!

Jesus wept as He drew near Jerusalem. He wept as He beheld in spirit the precious souls for whom His sufferings would be fruitless, because they would abuse and trample upon His grace. But there were other occasions when He wept. We know that He shed tears at the sepulcher of Lazarus; but do we know what we are to understand therefrom? It is, "my dear brethren, that our Lord, to whom the years of time are as naught, saw, in one moment, the many Christians who, in every age of the world, in every year, in every month and day and moment of the passing years, would insult His Adorable Majesty, and trample upon his ineffable goodness. And this not only by the deliberate commission of grievous sins, from time to time; but by becoming habitual sinners, and burying their poor souls in the yawning grave of mortal sin.

The thought of this loathsome grave drew tears from the sorrowing Saviour, as He stood by the sepulcher of His departed friend. Mary, pray for us, that this very day may witness our resolution to free ourselves, cost what it may, from the galling chains of mortal sin! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, for the greater honor and glory of God!

If the act of falling into sin, of falling from the state of grace into a state most hateful to God, of changing a child of God into a child of the devil, is already something so sad and horrible that the very consideration of it moved our Saviour to tears, all the reasons and motives for sadness, which are inseparable from such a spiritual condition, apply with greater force when a soul not only turns away from God by sin, but remains in it, and aggravates the malice of the offense by frequent relapses.

The deep and ever-increasing sadness that oppressed the heart of the loving Jesus, at the sight of the habitual sinner, has its origin in the malice of sin, in its aggravated ingratitude, and in the scandals from which the life of the habitual sinner is scarcely ever exempt. The lamentable state of the habitual sinner lies in the great malice of sin itself. The more clearly the sinner is able to recognize this malice, the greater it becomes; and, the greater the abuse of grace, the more guilty he is before God by his relapses, and the danger of final impenitence, to which he exposes himself.

Thus it is, however, with the relapsing sinner. After he has defaced his soul that fair temple of the Holy Ghost by mortal sin, he presents himself to the priest, he confesses his guilt; and, from the exhortations he receives in the sacred tribunal, he clearly perceives its atrocity.

There are many who, for years, commit sin after sin, whilst the prayer of Christ upon the cross: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," may be aptly applied to them; but this can not be said of the habitual sinner, who confesses and relapses again into sin. He knows well that what he does is evil; but, as time goes on, it gradually loses, with him, its heinous character, and appears less horrible than the first time he yielded to the tempter. Poor, foolish, deluded sinner! he fain would persuade himself that his soul is not so deeply stained with guilt as his confessor would have him believe; and, in his self-conceit, he imagines himself to be wiser than the minister of God. He goes on thus, until at last he is given over to a reprobate state. Had he committed but one sin, and had God then called him away, his soul would have been lost forever.

In heaven the angels fell, and the Lord did not pardon even one of those bright spirits; but condemned them to dwell forever in that fire which was enkindled by the wrath of an angry God.

Christ has said, that swiftly as the lightning's flash Satan fell from heaven to hell. He is and will remain forever lost, together with the rebellious hosts who chose to sin with him; and the relapsing sinner, instead of being grateful that he has been spared, not once, but many times, offends anew, not only in thoughts, but in desires, words and acts. At each offense, he grows more indifferent to his dreadful state, and Jesus weeps over his blindness. By what miracle will he be saved? If the warning threats of holy faith, and the admonitions upon those eternal consequences, which will inevitably result from sin, no longer exercise any power over him, what will be his fate here after? He is so accustomed to hear of God, of death, judgment, eternity, and hell, that it all falls unheeded on his ear.

If the bad angels, before their fall, had had such an example as the sinner, through their fall and judgment, has ever before his eyes, we may be sure they would never have sinned. If it could be that they might still possess their freedom, and such assistance of divine grace as man can always have, both as a sinner and as a faithful child of the Church, if he wish to return to God, or if he is firm in the practice of his religion, and wishes to remain so, there would not be one of the infernal spirits who would reject the means of salvation. The heathen sins, and grievously; but how much greater the crime of the sinner who knows, by the grace of faith, the heinousness of sin, and yet closes his eyes, and, by his willful relapses, goes to eternal perdition!

In regard to strength of will, the habitual sinner grows constantly weaker and less able to resist temptation; and, indeed, searches for new and more dangerous occasions to offend his Creator. Jesus is weeping!

The relapsing sinner stifles the voice of his conscience until its whispers sound like the echo of something faint and far away, so that he soon ceases to hear it, and at last ventures so far as to abuse the means which God left within His Church for the pardon of sin, viz.: the Sacrament of Penance. Jesus is weeping!

The crime of a sacrilegious confession causes the most intense grief to the loving heart of our Saviour, in the case of the habitual sinner; for it is there, above all, that this presumptuous creature dares to trample under foot the precious blood of Christ, to mock and scourge the Lord; and then, by an unworthy communion, to spit upon Jesus, who is really present in his heart, and deliver Him to His enemies. Jesus is weeping!

What a fearful stench arose from the decaying corpse of Lazarus! From the sinner, who is buried in the deep grave of sin, the same is exhaled. It comes from the thousands of crawling worms of shameful thoughts, words, desires and actions which will in time consume the total essence of his vocation to be a true child of God, and give bad example to others, so that they, too, infected by the pestilential vapor, with which such a soul is surrounded, will begin to offend God.

Christ looks upon the terrible effect which association with habitual sinners produces. His heart is sad. His soul is sorrowful, even unto death. Jesus is weeping!

Ask yourselves, now, whether there is any reason that He should weep over you! whether there is any mortal sin on your soul, or, still worse, whether that sin has become habitual! Would to God that this were the hour of grace, when the Lord in His mercy would call out to you, as He did to Lazarus: "Come forth!" O Christians, for the sake of your precious souls, come forth, I entreat you! Do it without delay! Be converted, and console the heart of the weeping Jesus, by a life of piety, in which relapse into sin will have no place! Amen!