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

We live in a time when more people than ever before attempt to serve as historians without the proper scholarly training, which includes a thorough review of primary documents. Obviously, the same is true in most other fields as well, including, of course, theology and philosophy. Everyone is an “expert” today because they have access to a computer and the ability to post their thoughts, such as they are, online.

Most people alive today, including most Catholics, have never seen the following definition of what constitutes true history that is to shape all scholarly historical research and commentary:

History is concerned with individual and contingent facts. In order to discern the supreme causes and laws of the events which historians narrate, we must stand out from, and place ourselves above these events. To do this with certainty one should, of course, be enlightened by Him Who holds all things in the hollow of His hand. Unaided human reason cannot even attempt to give an account of the supreme interests at stake in the world, for the world, as it is historically, these interests are supernatural.

Human reason strengthened by faith, that is, by the acceptance of the information God has given us about the world through His Son and through the Society founded by Him, can attempt to give this account, though with a lively consciousness of its limitations. It is only when we shall be in possession of the Beatific Vision that the full beauty of the Divine Plan which is being worked out in the world will be visible to us. Until then, we can only make an imperfect attempt at what is not the philosophy, but the theology of history. The theologian who has the Catholic Faith is in touch with the full reality of the world, and can therefore undertake to show, however feebly and imperfectly, the interplay of the supreme realities of life.

The philosopher, as such, knows nothing about the reality of the divine life of Grace, which we lost by the Fall of our First Parents, and nothing of the Mystical Body of Christ through which we receive back that life. The philosophy of history, if it is to be true philosophy, that is, knowledge by supreme causes, must therefore be rather the theology of history. Yet how few, even among those who have the Catholic Faith, think of turning to the instructions and warnings issued by the representatives of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth, when they wish to ascertain the root causes of the present chaotic condition of the world! (Father Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World.)

It is only possible to understand the events of the world through the eyes of the true Faith, not through the mainslime media nor through the prism of Protestant "conspiracy" theorists who do not view the world through the eyes of the true Faith and who fail to understand that our ultimate enemy is not so much this or that set of no-goodniks or government agents. No, the utimate enemy is the devil himself, who uses various human actors to effect his purpoes and to keep people so agitated by questions of "whodunit" that they become incapable of understanding the world tis in the mess that it is because of the Protestant Revolution's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the subsequent rise and institutionalization of the various branches of naturalism that can be termed collectively as Judeo-Masonry.

This is not to say that non-Catholic scholars cannot write history books or articles that contain accurate accounts of various sets of contingent events at one time or another.

It is to say, however, that most scholarship and contemporary commentary today is relatively worthless because of the various ideological and/or false theological perspectives that are brought to bear upon the subjects and/or events covered, and this includes most of the commentary on the farce of Judeo-Masonry that is electoral politics today. The same is true the various engineered crises that take place in the world and that always seem to consume the minds and hearts of Catholics during the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter to serve as the adversary’s means to distract and agitate even believing Catholics into breathlessly sending out the latest supposed “insight” written by those who, at the least for the most part, do not see the world clearly the supernatural eyes of the Holy Faith.

Thus, this commentary, which provides links to several articles as well as quoting from a few others, is designed to bring a supernatural perspective to the ongoing aggression of the Zionists and the American neoconservative support for endless wars in that region that is nothing other than Trotskyism under the banner of aiding “the only democracy” and “America’s only ally in the Middle East,” the Zionist State of Israel.

Thus, as complex as the Russo-Ukrainian War has been for many people to understand, the situation in Syria, where Saint Peter had established his second see after Jerusalem and before Rome, Antioch, and whose capital city, Damascus, was where Saul of Tarsus was headed to engage in another persecution of Catholics following the stoning of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr in Jerusalem when Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ appeared to him to ask, “Saul, Saul, what dost thou persecutest Me,” thereby effecting the conversion of Saul into Saint Paul the Apostle, can make one’s eyes as crossed as those of the famous Catholic actor of the silent and early sound film era, Ben Turpin.

There are factions within factions of various factions of Mohammedanism aplenty in Syria, and the heavy hand of modern Syria’s southern neighbor, the Zionist State of Israel, has always been ready to put down its aggressive imprint whenever its leaders, imprisoned as they are in states of Original Sin and thus captives as to the devil himself as the Mohammedans, have desired to interfere there. Put as simply as possible, the recent overthrow of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, the son of the late Hafez al-Assad, who was always a reliable client of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War, was the work of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad in their never-ending quest to construct “Greater Israel”:

Syria no longer exists. The Russian news service RT reports that Israel has launched the largest attack on Syria in history with Israeli warplanes hitting more than 250 military targets.  Other reports put the number at 300.  The Israeli Defense Force reports it has destroyed 80% of Syrian military capability. This is after Syria’s fall.  “Wave after wave of airstrikes carried out by IAF fighter jets and drones then hit Syrian airbases, weapon depots and weapon production sites in Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia and Palmyra, according to the military. Meanwhile, on Monday night, Israeli Navy missile boats destroyed 15 naval vessels belonging to the former regime at the Minet el-Beida bay and Latakia port on the Syrian coast.” Possibly the Syrian Army, paid to stand down, suffered more casualties from these attacks than they would have suffered in battle in defense of Syria. The money for the generals came at a high price for the soldier.

The Israeli military said the airstrikes destroyed many long-range projectiles, Scud missiles, cruise missiles, coast-to-sea missiles, air defense missiles, fighter jets, helicopters, radars, tanks, hangars and more.

Israel explains its aggression as self-defense to prevent the weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists.  But the terrorists that Israel, Washington, and Turkey employed to overthrow Syria have been turned into “democratic forces that liberated Syria” and whose leader has declared friendship with Israel.  The real explanation for Israel’s aggression is that Israel now occupies part of Syria. If you will remember, recently Netanyahu held up a map of Greater Israel and it included Syria. Netanyahu, despite his criminal indictment in Israel for corruption, is likely to go down as the greatest of all Israeli heroes, as the leader who achieved the Zionist goal of Greater Israel.

You might remember that the American media and “fact checkers” denied there was any such thing as Greater Israel.  It was all misinformation by anti-semites. Apparently, the narrative controllers regarded Netanyahu’s map  of Greater Israel as part of the anti-semantic misinformation.  The Zionist neoconservatives showed their hand many years ago when they put in motion their plan to destroy seven countries in five years. It took longer than five years, but with Syria’s fall only two of the seven remain–Iran and Saudi Arabia.  The inability of the Muslim Middle East to unify has doomed it.

Israel has sent tank columns into Syria with the intent of occupation.  Washington backs Israel’s invasion of Syria. Washington’s narrative is that it is better to have Syrian territory in the hands of Israel than ISIS, Washington’s tool, already betrayed, in Syria’s overthrow. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says  Washington expects Israel’s occupation of Syrian territory to be “temporary.”  Turkey’s reward is that Erdogan can now conduct military operations against the Kurds who were sheltered by Syria.

The myth that Syria still exists is alive in the UN and among Russian government officials. The UN Security Council is united in the need to “preserve the territorial integrity of Syria,” Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said after a a closed-door meeting on Monday. “We were talking about the need to work out a document by the Council … in the coming days,” Nebenzia said. Amazing. The Russians are going to save Syria with a document. See this.

The absence of realism among the Russian government is disturbing. Syria already doesn’t exist and is rapidly becoming Greater Israel.  Washington covers up reality by emphasizing Israel’s right to self-defense.  Defense from what?  A non-existent Syria?

Washington is also conducting strikes on former Syria.. The US claims to be striking ISIS, the CIA created force the US used to overthrow Syria. If the US and Israel now turn on the ISIS-al Qaeda forces, now called Al-Nusra, a name now superceded by “democratic opposition,” used to overthrow Assad, the situation could develop badly for Washington and Israel.  

Assad in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq were secular leaders.  This was necessary as both countries had Sunni and Shite residents.  But the jihadist forces Washington used against Libya and Syria contain real Muslims capable of jihad.  These Muslims opposed the secular leaders of Iraq and Syria and are willing agents for Washington and Israel to use for their own purposes against secular Muslim regimes. 

Now that Israel and Washington are turning on their jihadist tool, they possibly could have a fight on their hands and more instability than they counted on.  Both Israel and Washington are at work destroying Syrian air defenses, which with so much open territory will make it difficult for the jihadists to establish control over the territory they have conquered with the active help of Turkey, Washington, and Israel and the stand down help of Russia and Iran.  The question is: what will Washington, Israel, and Turkey do to dispose of the tool that they used to destroy Syria?

What Washington and Israel have going for them is that Muslims have been split since the fight over the succession to Muhammad. The Sunnis and the Shia hate one another more than they hate their Western and Israeli oppressors.  As UK ambassador Craig Murray explains, Turkey and the Gulf States accept the annihilation of the Palestinian nation and creation of a Greater Israel, in return for the annihilation of the Shia minorities of Syria and Lebanon and the imposition of Salafism across the Eastern Arab world.

The Russian government shows no understanding of the consequences of Greater Israel. Alan Sabrosky concludes that Russia was not willing to fight as hard in Syria’s defense as Washington and Israel were to fight for Syria’s downfall. The road to Iran is now clear.

The fact that matters most is that throughout the world the perception is that Washington and Israel have prevailed over Russia. This perception will strengthen Washington and likely have effects on foreign policies and on the development of BRICS. Saudi Arabia, which went so far as to hold joint military maneuvers with Iran and to express an interest in BRICS will likely reinstate the petro-dollar in exchange for Washington’s protection against the Israeli government minister who declared that the map of Greater Israel now includes Saudi Arabia.

The extraordinary defeat that Israel and Israel’s American neoconservatives have dealt to Russia and Iran  pre-empts Trump from any peace moves. The West has recovered its hegemony with Russia’s defeat in Syria and is on a roll. Washington will insist on Russia and Iran’s obedience.

The purpose of Trump’s ceasefire in Ukraine is to protect the West from a defeat. As Putin prefers agreements to war, he might fall into the trap, and Washington will have succeeded in restoring its hegemony.

Did the Russian and Iranian governments understand that the stakes in Syria were Washington’s hegemony and Israel’s hegemony over the Middle East in the form of Greater Israel?  Do they realize the enormity of their defeat?

The “Syrian Democratic Opposition” at Work.

As has long been the case, Muslims had rather murder each other than to kill their mutual enemies. (Greater Israel Is on the March. Also see Israel bombs Damascus as 50-year peace deal ends with Assad overthrow, and Israel deploys paratroopers to Syria in 'defense activities' after fall of Assad.)

The author of the commentary above, Paul Craig Roberts, does not seem to understand all falsehoods must degenerate into warring camps, which is why one has witnessed Mohammedans fighting Mohammedans since the death of the false, blaspheming pedophile “prophet” named Mohammed. Judaism itself divided into warring camps following the expiration of the thirty-seven year time of mercy that  Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had extended to the Jews following the abolition of the Old Covenant when He instituted New and Eternal Covenant at the Last Supper and ratified it with the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday as He took His last breath while the earth shook and the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom to signify the supersession of Judaism by Catholicism. Protestantism divided into warring camps even during Martin Luther’s lifetime with the number of those warring camps numbering over 55,000 at present. Every single political ideology, whether of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” or the false opposite of the naturalist “right” (liberalism, conservatism, socialism, Marxism, utilitarianism, progressivism, populism, nationalism, psychologism, pragmatism, evolutionism, pantheism, rationalism, etc.) has sects within sects and factions within factions. Error divides. Only Catholicism unites.

As has been noted in the previous six parts of this series of commentaries, as well as in numerous other articles on this website in the past twenty years, ten months, the adversary hates the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Holy Trinity, and, knowing that he cannot defeat God, continues to try to deceive as many souls made in God’s image and likeness into believing everything else other than Catholicism and then to turn those who are committed into error into mortal enemies of each other as a perverse foretaste of the enmity they will have each other in hell for all eternity while the master of lies and prince of darkness torments them without end for being so stupid as to his bidding for him.

Thus it is in the current situation as it has ever been in past conflicts that those praising the end of brutal and corrupt Assad regime now have to deal with a believing Mohammedan who is an equal opportunity hater, especially of small number of Catholics and Orthodox Christians who have remained Syria, and who will doubtlessly subject them and their churches to the same kind of persecution that was visited upon Chaldean Rite Catholics in Iraq following the American “liberation,” occupation, destruction, reconstruction of that ancient land, which has become effectively a Mohammedan client state of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

In late November, the seemingly dormant civil war in Syria reignited and Syrian rebel groups began a new drive across western Syria. At first, the rebels captured Aleppo and Hama, and then moved on to the capital Damascus, finally toppling the Assad regime.

The fall of the Assad regime—the last secular Arab regime—represents a victory for Islamist, terrorist insurgents and their allies. These terrorists’ allies, most especially the US and the State of Israel.

Washington began to publicly and actively pursue this in 2013 when then-President Barack Obama declared that Assad “must go” during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, as now, the US was being repeatedly pulled into regional conflicts in the service of the Israeli state. Tel Aviv wanted a puppet regime installed in Syria that would facilitate Israeli land grabs in southern Syria.
This opposition to the Assad regime was packaged as opposition to Assad’s alleged human rights abuses, although Assad’s supposed war crimes now look almost quaint compared to the ongoing butchering of women and children by the Israeli state in Gaza.

Just as Tel Aviv respects no international law or limits on warfare imposed by just war theory, so also the Israeli state is not loath to support terrorists when they are helpful in toppling Israel’s stronger enemies.

For years, the US has kept thousands of troops in Syria—with about 9,000 there now—and, as Eric Margolis puts it, the US “with Israel, helps the jihadists while publicly denouncing them.”

Thus, Washington and Tel Aviv have both long supported what are essentially adjuncts of ISIS and Al-qaeda in Syria, including the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Now, with the Islamists triumphant over Syria’s secular state, Julani yesterday delivered a victory speech at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, declaring the success of the “mujahideen.” 

While claiming to be against radical Islam, the Bush administration, and every president since, has chosen to ally with some of the most brutal Islamist regimes of the Middle East—especially Saudi Arabia—which has all but totally outlawed Christianity for generations. The US has instead set itself against the regimes of the region that actually tolerate and provide some legal protections for Christians, namely Syria (under Assad) and Iran.

With Assad gone, it is likely that Christian communities in Syria will suffer as they have in Iraq. We are likely to see Islamist waves of violence against Christian churches and communities, with new mandates for the hijab and other elements of Islamist dress imposed throughout the country. Given that the conquering group is essentially al-Qaeda, we might even expect the dynamiting of ancient Christian shrines and churches.

Syria, after all, is home to Damascus where St. Paul the Apostle first became a Christian and was baptized by St. Ananias of Damascus. Syria was an important center of Christian theology in early centuries under Church Fathers like Ephrem the Syrian. To this day—but perhaps for not much longer—ancient groups of Christians pray the Divine Liturgy in Aramaic, the daily language of Christ.

This may soon all but vanish as Christianity is forced underground at the hands of these allies of Washington and Israel.

ani was formerly the leader of al-Nusra Front, which was the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. In 2016, Julani rebranded, claiming to cut ties with al-Qaeda, and changed his group’s name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which merged with other Islamist groups to form HTS in 2017.

With the end of Syria’s secular regime comes yet another devasting blow to the dwindling communities of Christians in the Levant and the Middle East overall.

For at least twenty years, Washington has been systematically engaging in policies that have destroyed ancient Christian communities in the Middle East. The US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 destroyed the secular regime there which had provided legal protections of Christians. In the wake of Bush’s war, violence and reprisals against Christians multiplied. Bush’s war there essentially created a power vacuum that allowed for the rise of Islamist gangs throughout Iraq, culminating in the rise of ISIS which systematically destroyed Christian holy sites, and Christians themselves, across northern Iraq.

While claiming to be against radical Islam, the Bush administration, and every president since, has chosen to ally with some of the most brutal Islamist regimes of the Middle East—especially Saudi Arabia—which has all but totally outlawed Christianity for generations. The US has instead set itself against the regimes of the region that actually tolerate and provide some legal protections for Christians, namely Syria (under Assad) and Iran.

With Assad gone, it is likely that Christian communities in Syria will suffer as they have in Iraq. We are likely to see Islamist waves of violence against Christian churches and communities, with new mandates for the hijab and other elements of Islamist dress imposed throughout the country. Given that the conquering group is essentially al-Qaeda, we might even expect the dynamiting of ancient Christian shrines and churches.

Syria, after all, is home to Damascus where St. Paul the Apostle first became a Christian and was baptized by St. Ananias of Damascus. Syria was an important center of Christian theology in early centuries under Church Fathers like Ephrem the Syrian. To this day—but perhaps for not much longer—ancient groups of Christians pray the Divine Liturgy in Aramaic, the daily language of Christ.

This may soon all but vanish as Christianity is forced underground at the hands of these allies of Washington and Israel. (The Neocons and Zionists Finally Get Their Regime Change in Syria.)

Despite all the enmity that exists between within and among the various of Mohammedanism and between the Mohammedans and the Jews, both have a common enemy which they have sought to annihilate: Catholicism.

Although the Talmudists continue turf battles with the Mohammedans in the land where Our Lord Himself was born, lived, preached, performed miracles, suffered, died, was a buried and rose from the dead, they are more than willing to work both overtly and covertly to use Mohammedans in their continuing warfare against Christ the King and His true Church and to use terrorist attacks committed by Mohammedans, some of which may be engineered by their own agents provocateurs, as a means of assuring continued American economic and military aid to the State of Israel.

For example, it was a little over twelve years ago that a very confused website run by conciliar Catholics that makes the very fact of the bodily Resurrection from the dead a matter subject to individual interpretation nevertheless explained how the Jews in Spain opened the gates to invading Mohammedans in the Eighth Century A.D., thus starting a long period of alliance that was used to attack the Catholic Faith for the better part of seven hundred eighty-one years:

The longest war in history began in 711 with the Muslim invasion of Spain. It took 24 generations of Christians 780 years to achieve the re-conquest of their country. The initial surge of Muslim victories across Spain was not due only to Muslim aggression and Christian un-preparedness, but—as Jewish writer Norman Cantor relates—because in city after city Jewish inhabitants opened the gates to the Muslim invaders:

“[W]ith help from the persecuted Jewish minority, an army of Arabs and Berbers crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and easily eliminated the Visigoth monarchy, driving the surviving Christian nobility into the northern foothills of the Pyrenees…After opening the gates of Christian cities to the Arab armies, Jews served the newly established Muslim princes as government officials, bankers, and especially leaders in international commerce, stretching from Western Europe to India.”[i] (Queen Isabella.)

It is the same today as the scions of Judeo-Masonry welcome Mohammedan “refugees” from Syria as a means of making public reference to the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer “offense” to all those who deny His Sacred Divinity, including Jews and Mohammedans, to change the demographics of Western nations and to use “radicalized” Mohammedans into doing what comes naturally to them: committing acts of terror, which are then used by the statists either as pretexts for protecting “peaceful” Mohammedans from persecution and/or to bang war drums for yet another needless, immoral and unjust war to “make America safe” when it is one of the least safe places in the world for the innocent preborn, the brain-damaged, the disabled, the elderly and the chronically or terminally ill.

The sad situation in Syria, which has many remote and proximate causes, to be sure, has been produced in large part not only by the undeniable brutality of the Assad regime (see Syria war: Ten years on, Syrian Christians say Assad 'has taken us hostage' and Syria carnage a stark reminder of failed Obama foreign policy.)

It is not at all to ignore the amorality of the brutal secular Mohammedan named Bashir al-Assad to point out that the man who has replaced him as the Syrian strongman, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, is a faithful Mohammedan who believes in the liquidation of “infidels” despite his recent assurances of “toleration”:

In just three days, opposition fighters captured Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, after the stunning collapse of government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Leading the offensive was Abu Mohammed al-Julani, who stands at the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group that has become the most powerful armed opposition force in Syria.

Perhaps in an attempt to shake his growing reputation, a photo circulated online on Monday, purporting that al-Julani had been killed in a Russian strike, news that was quickly debunked as the photo was found to be doctored.

He is now front and centre as his forces look to consolidate control over Aleppo and capture more territory in Syria.

Here’s a closer look at al-Julani:

Present

As the founder of HTS, al-Julani has nearly a decade sought to dissociate himself from other armed forces and their focus on transnational operations, switching instead to focusing on creating an “Islamic republic.”

lHTS ran the governorate of Idlib via the Syrian Salvation Government, which it established in 2017 to provide civil services, education, healthcare, a judiciary and infrastructure as well as manage finances and aid distribution

However, HTS also rules with a heavy hand and does not tolerate dissent, according to activists, news reports and local monitors.

Independent journalism organisation Syria Direct reports that HTS is behind the disappearances of activists and has shot live ammunition at protesters who accuse the group of denying services to communities that oppose it.

Past

He was born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa in 1982 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as a petroleum engineer

The family returned to Syria in 1989, settling near Damascus.

Little is known of his time in Damascus before his move in 2003 to Iraq, where he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq as part of the resistance to the United States invasion that same year.

Arrested by US forces in Iraq in 2006 and held for five years, al-Julani was later tasked with establishing al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, al-Nusra Front, which grew its influence in opposition-held areas, especially Idlib.

Al-Julani coordinated in those early years with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of al-Qaeda’s “Islamic State in Iraq”, which later became ISIL (ISIS).

In April 2013, al-Baghdadi suddenly announced that his group was cutting ties with al-Qaeda and would expand into Syria, effectively swallowing al-Nusra Front into a new group called ISIL.

During his first televised interview in 2014, he told Al Jazeera that Syria should be ruled under his group’s interpretation of “Islamic law” and the country’s minorities, such as Christians and Alawis would not be accommodated.

In the following years, al-Julani appeared to distance himself from al-Qaeda’s project of establishing a “global caliphate” in all Muslim-majority countries, seeming to focus instead on building up his group within Syria’s borders.

The split appeared to be a bid, according to analysts, to stress his group’s national, as opposed to transnational, ambitions to groups in Idlib.

Then in July 2016, Aleppo fell to the regime and the armed groups there started to head to Idlib, which was still opposition-held. Around the same time, al-Julani announced that his group had changed to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

By early 2017, thousands of fighters poured into Idlib fleeing Aleppo and al-Julani announced the merging of a number of those groups with his own to form HTS.

The stated aim of HTS is to liberate Syria from Assad’s autocratic government, “expelling Iranian militias” from the country and establishing a state according to their own interpretation of “Islamic law”, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington, DC.

As opposition fighters retook Aleppo and moved south, al-Julani appears to have taken a more accommodating stance towards Syria’s minorities.

Since capturing Aleppo, the group has offered assurances that religious and ethnic minorities will be protected.

According to Hassan Hassan, a Syrian expert on armed groups in the Levant, al-Julani wants to brand HTS as a credible governing entity in Syria and a possible partner in global counterterrorism efforts.

In Idlib, he sought to partner with other armed opposition groups, such as Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Haq and Jaysh al-Sunna, according to CSIS, and to avoid earlier allies, like Hurras al-Din, the new al-Qaeda branch in Syria.

HTS is currently labelled a “terrorist” organisation by the United Nations, Turkiye, the US and European Union.

Al-Julani has said this designation is unfair since his group has renounced its past allegiances in favour of a national one.

Irrespective of al-Julani’s stated domestic ambitions, as the head of the biggest opposition armed group in Syria, his impact on the country will echo nationally and internationally. (Who is Abu Mohammed al-Julani, leader of HTS in Syria?.)

Reuters reports that Syrian Islamist rebels have captured Damascus and overthrown the regime of Bashar al-Assad, ending at least for now the six-decade rule of the Alawite regime. The Guardian notes that the rebels are part of an Islamist alliance Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS), whose founder, Abu Mohammad Jolani, fought with the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. forces as part of the Islamic State, and the Syrian National Army backed by Turkey.

The United States has designated HTS, which was formally affiliated with al-Qaeda, as a terrorist group. Assad, whose regime was backed by Iran and Russia, has reportedly fled to Russia. U.S. forces are present in the eastern portion of Syria controlled by the Kurds.

Syria is a land divided among rebel groups who will undoubtedly engage in a struggle for power, as previously happened in Iraq after U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime, and Libya after U.S. forces helped overthrow the Gaddafi regime. Like Hussein and Gaddafi, Assad was a brutal dictator who headed-up what the Financial Times called a “parasitical regime [that] bled the country dry,” just as his father Hafez al-Assad did until his death in 2000.

“Assad’s demise,” writes Andrew England in FT, “will be welcomed by the many millions who suffered under his rule … But the massive outpouring of jubilation will be tempered by wariness about what comes next.” One possibility is Syria becoming a “fragile, hollowed-out state in chaos with Islamist groups at the fore.”

Middle East expert Edward Luttwak noted that Assad’s fall was helped along by Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, which long supported Assad’s regime. Just a few days ago, U.S. forces carried out a military strike against Syrian forces in eastern Syria.  So Assad’s defeat is a loss for both Iran and Russia, but that doesn’t mean it is automatically a gain for the United States in the region.

President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the U.S. military “is not going to … dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war,” while president-elect Donald Trump said that the struggle in Syria “is not our fight.” President Biden commented simply that “at long last the Assad regime has fallen.”

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have taken control of a buffer zone on the Golan Heights, the strategic ground that separates Israel from Syria, because the Syrian Army “abandoned its positions,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also called Assad’s fall a “historic day” that “offers great opportunity but is also fraught with significant dangers.”

Netanyahu is approaching the developments in Syria with a “tragic mind” — Robert Kaplan’s phrase to describe a realist approach to international affairs. The “tragic mind,” Kaplan has written, is anti-utopian, appreciates the limitations of human nature and the “terrible power of the irrational.”

Netanyahu understands that the fall of a brutal regime often produces chaos which can be more deadly than tyranny. Kaplan saw that happen in Iraq — a war that he initially supported only to conclude that as bad as Hussein’s regime was, the chaos that followed was worse. The choice in human affairs is not always between good and evil — it is quite often between different degrees of evil.

Neoconservative voices are already applauding the fall of Assad’s regime, with Bill Kristol, the champion of regime change throughout the region, snidely remarking that with Assad in Moscow, Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson can now “visit both of their BFFs [i.e., Assad and Putin] on one trip.” Kristol wants to shape what happens in Syria “as much as possible.”

The editors of the Washington Post urge U.S. leaders to help build a “new Syria,” forgetting perhaps how we failed to build a “new Iraq” or a “new Libya” or a “new Afghanistan.” For the neocons, Syria is just another land to experiment with nation-building — like Marxists after communism’s repeated failures in country after country, the neocons believe that maybe this time nation-building will work.

Donald Trump seems instinctively to approach international developments with a tragic sensibility, aware of the limitations of American power and the potential unintended consequences of unbridled hubris. It is quite possible that none of the outcomes in Syria will benefit U.S. interests, but surely contributing to the chaos will not help matters. We have no vital interest in making Syria a democracy. Surely, we have learned the lessons of our failed and costly nation-building efforts in that part of the world. (Approach Syria With a Tragic Mind.)

The following paragraph from the commentary above summarizes the refusal of neoconservative war hawks such William Kristol, who has been elected to nothing nor has even sought elected office yet seeks to have a controlling influence over American foreign policy to benefit Israel and thus the American military-industrial-technological-pharmaceutical complex, to learn that they have failed repeatedly in their quixotic quest to “build democracy” in lands that are not in the least bit interested in any such thing just as much as the Marxism failed in country after country, such has been happening in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and, after Chavez’s death, Nicholas Maduro.

This is all quite reminiscent of the following passage from Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s June 8, 1978, commencement address at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, “A World Split Apart”:

But the persisting blindness of superiority continues to hold the belief that all the vast regions of our planet should develop and mature to the level of contemporary Western systems, the best in theory and the most attractive in practice; that all those other worlds are but temporarily prevented (by wicked leaders or by severe crises or by their own barbarity and incomprehension) from pursuing Western pluralistic democracy and adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in that direction. But in fact such a conception is a fruit of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, a result of mistakenly measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet's development bears little resemblance to all this.  (Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address.) 

Most American policymakers of the "left" believe that the mistaken foreign policy presuppositions of the "right" can be "corrected" by being obsequious to the real-life enemies of the United States of America.

None of those on the false opposites of the naturalist "right" or the naturalist "left" understand that nations can never be made secure when their citizens are at war with the true God of Divine Revelation by means of persisting in their own sins unrepentantly and by promoting one abject evil after another both at home and abroad. Empires have collapsed because of the decadence of the citizens and the overreach of emperors,

None of those on the false opposites of the naturalist "right" or the naturalist "left" understand or accept these plain words found in Pope Pius XI's Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that have been quoted so many times on this site but are worth repeating yet again:

Because the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ, she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state. The Church alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity which both from the point of view of truth and of its practical value is quite superior to any exclusively philosophical theory. The Church is the teacher and an example of world good-will, for she is able to inculcate and develop in mankind the "true spirit of brotherly love" (St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, i, 30) and by raising the public estimation of the value and dignity of the individual's soul help thereby to lift us even unto God.

Finally, the Church is able to set both public and private life on the road to righteousness by demanding that everything and all men become obedient to God "Who beholdeth the heart," to His commands, to His laws, to His sanctions. If the teachings of the Church could only penetrate in some such manner as We have described the inner recesses of the consciences of mankind, be they rulers or be they subjects, all eventually would be so apprised of their personal and civic duties and their mutual responsibilities that in a short time "Christ would be all, and in all." (Colossians iii, 11)

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

No President of the United States of America has ever governed according to principles of Catholic truth, no less to do what civil leaders are supposed to do, namely, foster those conditions wherein citizens can better sanctify and thus save their souls as members of the Catholic Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order. The state of nations depends upon the state of the souls of its citizens, and no amount of ranting or raving about how our current situation domestically and internationally has spiraled out of control because most men in most nations around the world have souls that are captive to the devil by means of what are Mortal Sins in the objective order of things—and thus affect the intellects and wills of those who commit them whether or not they know it—and/or are held captive to the devil by means of Original Sin. In actual fact, of course, there are far more unbaptized souls around the world than those who are genuinely baptized, and the numbers of the baptized who are in states of Sanctifying Grace are infinitesimally puny in comparison to the over six billion people alive today.

As Catholics, therefore, we must never be swayed by the anxieties of the moment, or the plaintive pleas made for American “interventionism” by the talking heads/babbling fools of naturalism and Americanism on all-news cable networks. No canonized saint ever needed to listen to naturalists babble on and on and to know how to view the world and the events in it through the supernatural eyes of the Holy Faith.

Syria has long been victimized by the internecine battles of various Mohammedan sects and empires and the callous hubris of Western imperialists after World Wars I and II and, in more recent decades, by neoconservative endless warmongers and the murderous racialism and imperialism of the leaders of the Zionist State of Israel, whose Israeli Defense Force have been bombing Syrian military targets at will just as it has continued to bomb targets in Lebanon despite a ”cease-fire” agreement that has held together like gelatin pudding nailed to a wall:

Four separate air strikes by Israeli forces, which killed at least 49 civilians and decimated entire families in Lebanon, must be investigated as war crimes, Amnesty International said today. Under international law, direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians, and disproportionate attacks that cause excessive incidental civilian loss are war crimes.

In a research briefing, ‘The sky rained missiles’: Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon must be investigated as war crimes, Amnesty International found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on 29 September, the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on 14 October, and in Baalbeck city on 21 October. Israeli forces also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on 16 October.

The Israeli military did not issue warnings ahead of any of these strikes.

“These four attacks are emblematic of Israel’s shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law,” said Amnesty International’s Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns.

“These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a Special Session at the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory.”

Amnesty International interviewed 35 survivors and witnesses, surveyed the locations of the strikes in Nabatieh, Aitou and Baalbeck city and visited a hospital where some of the wounded received treatment. Researchers also photographed remnants of the munitions used in the attacks for expert identification, verified dozens of videos and photographic material from local sources and available on social media, and examined satellite imagery of the locations.

The organization wrote to the Israeli authorities on 11 November seeking information about the military objectives targeted at these locations and the measures taken to avoid or minimize causing civilian casualties, but did not receive a response prior to publication.

Families decimated in their homes

On 29 September, at approximately 4:50am local time, an Israeli strike on the outskirts of al-Ain destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside.

Ibrahim al-Shaar, the only surviving family member who was not home that night, told Amnesty International he had no idea why his house was hit.

Another man, Youssef Jaafar, the mukhtar of the village, told Amnesty International that the al-Shaar family had lived in the village for years: “This is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever. It is full of kids. This family is well-known in town.”

In a separate strike on 21 October, at around 5:45am local time, Israeli forces hit the al-Nabi Inaam neighbourhood in Baalbeck, destroying a building housing 13 members of the Othman family.

The strike killed six people, two women and four children, and injured the seven others.

Fatima Drai, who lost her two sons Hassan, 5, and Hussein, 3, in the attack, told Amnesty International: “My son woke me up; he was thirsty and wanted to drink. I gave him water and he went back to sleep, hugging his brother. […] When he hugged his brother, I smiled and thought, I’ll tell his father how our son is when he comes back. I went to pray, and then everything around me exploded. A gas canister exploded, burning my feet, and within seconds, it consumed my kids’ room.”

Given that all those killed in these two attacks were civilians and that Amnesty International found no evidence of military objectives being present in the houses or their immediate vicinity, this  raises serious concerns that the strikes on the al-Shaar and Othman family homes were direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects. These strikes should be investigated as war crimes.

Attack in northern Lebanon kills 23 civilians

An Israeli air strike on 14 October destroyed a building in Aitou, killing 23 civilians displaced from southern Lebanon, as well as Ahmad Fakih, the man presumed by those staying in the building to be the target of the attack. The attack took place minutes after Ahmad Fakih arrived at the house.

The youngest casualty was Aline, a five-month-old baby who was flung from the house into a pick-up truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after the strike.

The Israeli military did not publicly comment on the strike and who or what it was targeting in Aitou, deep in Lebanon’s Christian heartland and more than 115 kilometres away from the border with Israel. Amnesty International researchers visited the site of the strike and saw children’s books, toys, clothes and cooking utensils among the rubble where the house once stood.

Even if Israel intended to target Ahmad Fakih, whom survivors believed was affiliated with Hezbollah, the means and method of this attack on a house full of civilians likely would make this an indiscriminate attack  and it also may have been disproportionate given the presence of a large number of civilians at the time of the strike.. It should be investigated as a war crime.

A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analysed by an Amnesty International weapons’ expert and based upon its size, shape and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a Mk-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500lb bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.

One of the survivors, Jinane Hijazi, who lost her 11-month-old child, Ruqayya Issa, said: “I’ve lost everything, my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too.”

Strike on municipal headquarters in Nabatieh

During the morning of 16 October, an Israeli air strike hit the municipal headquarters of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, killing 11 civilians, including the mayor, and injuring at least three other civilians.

The air strike took place without warning, just as the municipality’s crisis unit was meeting to coordinate deliveries of aid, including food, water and medicine, to residents and internally displaced people who had fled bombardment in other parts of southern Lebanon.

Following the strike, the Israeli military stated that its forces attacked dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area, without explicit reference to this particular strike. However, Amnesty International did not find any evidence of a military target at the municipal headquarters at the time of the attack.

“Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful air strikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians. The latest evidence of unlawful air strikes during Israel’s most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers to Israel due to the risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law,” Erika Guevara Rosas said. (Lebanon: Israeli air strikes that killed at least 49 civilians further evidence of war crimes.)

Well, I do not care about “humanitarian law.” I care about the binding precepts of the Divine and Natural Laws, which are violated with impunity by those who adhere to one or the other anti-Trinitarian and anti-Incarnational false religious sects, Talmudism or Mohammedanism. Adherents of each kill with impunity as they believe all infidels are “combatants” and be killed at will, and kill at will they do as the murderous Zionists of Israel continue to ring down bombs upon innocent Palestinians in Gaza:

• The Palestinian Foreign Affairs Ministry denounced the “brutal massacre committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza”.
• Israel intensified its bombardment of Gaza City and other areas in the north of the besieged enclave.
• Israeli attacks around Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza injured three medics overnight and caused damage to the facility.
• The Israeli army said two projectiles were intercepted after being launched from central Gaza – a rocket attack claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a ceasefire deal in Gaza “as soon as possible”.
• Israeli forces arrested at least three children during a raid on Burqa village east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Mourad Bayoumi, who survived the Israeli attack that killed dozens of people in central Gaza on Thursday, describes horrific scenes after the strike.

“I was coming home; I saw the missile hit. It struck our neighbour’s house, shredding everyone to pieces,” Bayoumi told Al Jazeera.

“It was not a normal missile. These buildings have strong concrete foundations but look at them – reduced to ashes.”

Mourad Bayoumi, who survived the Israeli attack that killed dozens of people in central Gaza on Thursday, describes horrific scenes after the strike.

“I was coming home; I saw the missile hit. It struck our neighbour’s house, shredding everyone to pieces,” Bayoumi told Al Jazeera.

“It was not a normal missile. These buildings have strong concrete foundations but look at them – reduced to ashes.” (Israel-Gaza updates: Gaza City faces ‘horrific’ Israeli bombardment | Israel-Palestine conflict News.)

Despite efforts being made by various apologists for international Zionism such as those who belong to the who are seeking to disparage reports of the extent of Israel’s monstrous genocide against the Palestinian people, there is a genocide taking place and it is being enabled by the neoconservative war hawks of the West.

As I have said so many times before, there can be this or that ceasefire agreement or this or that “peace plan” in the Middle East, but there will never be a true respite from conflicts that are being fueled by men whose immortal souls are captive to the devil by means of Original Sin until one and all exclaim with joy as the fruit of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholics worldwide have prayed for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ through daily fidelity to Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary: “Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini! Hosanna in Excelsis!”

On Gaudete Sunday, December 15, 2024

Writing in The Liturgical Year, Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., explained that Gaudete Sunday, which we celebrate today, Sunday, December 15, 2024, the Third Sunday of Advent and the Commemoration of the Octave of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, reminds us of the joy that must be ours because we belong to the Catholic Church, she who can make no terms with error: 

O holy Roman Church, city of our strength! behold us thy children assembled within thy walls, around the tomb of the fisherman, the prince of the apostles, whose sacred relics protect thee from their earthy shrine, and whose unchanging teaching enlightens thee from heaven. Yet, O city of strength: it is by the Saviour, who is coming that thou art strong. He is they wall, for it is He that encircles, with His tender mercy all thy children; He is thy bulwark, for it is by Him that thou art invincible, and that all the powers of hell are powerless to prevail against thee. Open wide thy gates, that all nations may enter thee; for thou art mistress of holiness and the guardian of truth. May the old error, which sets itself against the faith soon disappear, and peace reign over the whole fold! O holy Roman Church ! thou hast for ever put they trust in the Lord; and He, faithful to His promise, has humbled before thee the haughty ones that defied thee, and the proud cities that were against thee. Where now are the Caesars, who boasted that they had drowned thee in thy own blood ? where the emperors, who would ravish the inviolate virginity of thy faith ? where the heretics, who during the past centuries of thine existence, have assailed every article of thy teaching, and denied what they listed ? where the ungrateful princes, who would fain make a slave of thee, who hadst made them what they were ? where the empire of Mahomet, which has so many times raged against thee, for that thou, the defenceless State, didst arrest the pride of its conquests ? where the more modern sophists in whose philosophy thou was sent down as a system that had been tried, and was a failure, and is not a ruin ? and those kings who are acting the tyrant over thee, and those people that will have liberty independently and at the risk of truth, where they will be another hundred years? Gone and forgotten as the noisy anger of a torrent; whilst thou, O holy Church of Rome, built on the immovable rock, wilt be as calm as young, as unwrinkled as ever. Thy path through the ages of this world’s duration, will be right as that of the just man; thou wilt ever be the same unchanging Church, as thou hast been during the eighteen years past, whist everything else under the sun has been but change. Whence is thy stability, but form Him who is very truth and justice? Glory be to Him in thee! Each year, He visits thee; each year, He brings thee new gifts, wherewith thou mayest go happily through thy pilgrimage; and to the end of time, He will visit thee, and renew thee, not only with the power of that look wherewith Peter was renewed, but by filling thee with Himself, as He did the every glorious Virgin, who is the object of thy most tender love, after that which thou bearest to Jesus Himself. We pray with thee, O Church, our mother, and here is our prayer: ‘Coe, Lord Jesus! Thy name and Thy remembrance are the desire of our souls; they have desired Thee in the night, yea, and early in the morning have they watched for Thee.’ (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Volume I, Advent, pp. 201-202.)

Although Dom Prosper Gueranger did not foresee the fact that even worse sophists and heretics would arise within one hundred years of his death on January 30, 1875, his description of the glories of Catholic Church can be applied to the counterfeit church of concilarism in no manner whatsoever as the latter entity is an embodiment of sophistry and heresy that has made terms with the ancient enemies of Christ the King and all other false religions and false philosophies and social currents. No one, no matter how prominent he may be nor how wealthy he may have become as a result of enterprise and hard work, can claim that the Catholic Church is institutionally corrupt as her Divine Constitution guarantees her a virginal purity as well as the infallible protection of God the Holy Ghost in her Faith, Worship and Morals.

It is far past time for believing Catholics to understand and then to accept the fact that the problem facing us at this time is not a "heretical pope" but a false church that has been headed by heretics from its inception. All that has happened recently is that the heretics have become bolder and more open about their agenda after a steady dose of five decades of fables that have been designed to convince baptized Catholics to hate Catholic truth as opposed to God's "mercy" and to embrace naturalism as the only legitimate foundation of social order. 

We need Our Lady's help, especially by means of her Most Holy Rosary, in these troubling times as without the graces she sends us we will be prone to view the world through the eyes of naturalism and not through the supernatural eyes of the Catholic Faith.

May we take solace in these words of Dom Prosper Gueranger about Gaudete Sunday:

There hath stood One in the midst of you, whom you know not, says Saint John the Baptist to them that were sent by the Jews. So that our Lord may be near. He may even have come, and yet by some be not known! This Lamb of God is the holy Precursor’s consolation; he considers it a singular privilege to be but the voice which cries out to them to prepare the way of the Redeemer. In this, St. John a type of the Church, and of all such as seek Jesus. St. John  is full of joy because the Savior has come, but the men around him are as indifferent as though they neither expected nor wanted a Savior. This is the third week of Advent; and are all hearts excited by the great tidings told them by the Church, that the Messias is near at hand? They that love Him not as their Savior, do they fear Him as their Judge? Are the crooked ways being made straight, and the hills being brought low? Are Christians seriously engaged in removing from their hearts the love or riches and the love of sensual pleasures? There is no time to lose: The Lord is nigh!" If these lines should come under the eye of any of those Christians who are in this state of sinful indifference, we would conjure them to shake off  their lethargy, an render themselves worthy of the visit of the divine Infant; such a visit will bring them the greatest consolation here, and give them confidence hereafter, when our Lord will come to judge all mankind. Send thy grace, O Jesus, still more plentifully into their hearts; ‘compel them to go in,’ and permit not that it be said of the children of the Church, as St. John said of the Synagogue: There standeth in the midst of you One, whom you know not. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Volume I, Advent, pp. 205-206.)

We need Our Lady's help to make straight the path of her Divine Son into our own souls so that, liberated from the muck and mire of competing sets of naturalists, we may focus on the joy that should be shared by everyone in the world about the fact that He has become Incarnate for us and our salvation and deigned to be born in a lowly estate on Christmas Day. 

This is all the more reason to take seriously this week's Ember Days in order that we might make reparation for our sins by offering up our prayers, fasting and sacrifices to the Throne of the Most Blessed Trinity as the consecrated slaves of Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of  Mary and by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits so that we may welcome Him anew every day in our lives as we exclaim: “Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini! Hosanna in Excelsis!”

Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

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.

On The "O Antiphons"

Reflecting on the O Antiphons that we pray in Vespers from December 17 to December 24, Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., provided some commentary that is as relevant to our circumstances today as they were when his Light of the World was published in Germany in 1954. (The entire texts of Father Baur's reflections on the first three O Antiphons can be found in the appendices below.)

Father Benedict Baur’s reflection on the antiphon prayed on Tuesday, December 17, 2024, “O Wisdom,” contains the following passages that describe both the ignorance of the naturalists—the “sensible” men of the world—and the faith of those who duly submissive to the Church founded by Wisdom Incarnate:

Divine Wisdom clothes itself in the nature of a man. It conceals itself in the weakness of a child. It chooses for itself, infancy, poverty, obedience, subjection, obscurity. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the produce of the prudent I will not reject. . . . Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but since we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews, indeed, a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.  . . . But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And the base things of the world and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are” (1 Cor.19 ff.).

Come, O Divine Wisdom, teach us the way of knowledge. We are unwise; we judge and speak according to the vain standards of the world, which is foolishness in the eyes of God. Come, O divine Wisdom, give us the true knowledge and the taste for what is eternal and divine. Inspire us with a thirst for God’s holy will help us seek God’s guidance and direction enlighten us in the teachings of the holy gospel, make us submissive to Thy holy Church. Strengthen us in the forgetfulness of self, and help us to reign ourselves to a position of obscurity if that be Thy holy will. Detach our hearts from resurgent pride. Give us wisdom that we may understand that “but one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42). “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Matt. 16:26.) The Holy Spirit would have us know that one degree of grace is worth more than all worldly possessions.

“The sensual man,” with only his natural ability, his unaided human talents, “perceiveth not these thing that are of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14).Eternal Wisdom is foolishness to such a man. He cannot understand because he is not spiritually minded. The spiritual man is guided by the Holy Ghost, penetrates and values all things in the light of divine Wisdom, who “Himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ,” the eternal Wisdom (1 Cor. 2:15f.).

The wisdom of God appears to us in the crib, in poverty, in silence, in the weakness of childhood, in the gospel message: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who suffer persecution for Christ’s sake. The wisdom of God is made manifest in the foolishness of the cross. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954, “O Divine Wisdom,” pp, 77-78.)

Father Baur’s reflection on “O Adonai,” which will be prayed on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, Ember Wednesday in Advent and, in some places, the Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, echoes themes that had been written by Pope Pius XI over three decades earlier, reiterating the sad state of those who prefer to believe that Our Lord, if He is truly the Divine Redeemer, has no place in public life, or that all mention of His Holy Name must be banished from social discourse:

O Adonai, O almighty God, stretch forth Thy arm and save us. The enemy of our salvation, the enemy of souls, the enemy of the Church rises with great power seeking to destroy belief in God, in Christ, and in the Christian religion. Men have wandered far from the true God; they have turned their backs on Him and made for themselves grave images. They have banished God from their thoughts and from their lives. God is a disturbing element which they would be glad to be rid of. Any other molestation they will gladly suffer, no matter how foolish and disturbing it is.

“Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and ye gates thereof be very desolate with the Lord. For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2: 12 f.). Both men and nations have lost all peace and tranquility. All virtues, innocence, fidelity, honor, honesty, and even a man’s word may be bought for gold. Scarcely one man can be found who trusts another. Nation has risen against nation, and man against man. Few are they who are faithful to their duty. The spirit of self-sacrifice is rarely to be found. Whether men read, study, or work, their actions are characterized by a spirit of restlessness and disquietude. All their striving produces few results, except to make them more tired, empty, and soulless. And yet they perish in their efforts to do without God and without Christ. Thus they live in spite of the fact “there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4: 12.). Only He, the almighty God, can save us. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World,  Volume I, “O Adonai,” pp. 79-80.)

Yes, this all the angst amongst "conservatives" who are striving within a false church against the heresies, sacrileges and blasphemies of a false "pope."

“All their striving produces few results, except to make them more tired, empty, and soulless. And yet they perish in their efforts to do without God and without Christ.”

This is a perfect description of the vain babbling that so many people accept as “wisdom” in this world, which is indeed in the grip of the adversary, something that Father Baur pointed out in his reflection for today’s antiphon, “O Root of Jesse”:

“Come to deliver us and tarry not.” The world cries out for Christ its King, who shall cast out the Prince of this world (John 12:31). The prince of this world established his power over men as a result of original sin. He exercises his lordship very efficiently, and has led man men into apostasy and idolatry, and has brought them into the temples where he himself is adored. He even dared to approach our Lord, after His fast of forty days in the desert to tempt Him to fall down before him and adore him. Even after we had been delivered from the servitude of Satan through the death of Christ on the cross, the prince of this world attempts to exercise his power over us. “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Like a bird of prey he hovers above us waiting for a favorable opportunity to seize us and to lead us into sin. Often enough he transforms “himself into an angel of light” (1 Cor. 11:14). The sworn enemy and adversary of Christ and of all that is good, he devotes his entire energy and his great intelligence to the task of establishing a kingdom of sin and darkness which is opposed to God and to Christianity.

Satan establishes his power over deluded over men in a way that is perfectly obvious. When he has gained control over the body of man, he uses it for his own purposes, as though it were he who actually controls and animates the body in place of the human soul. He often exerts his influence over men by harassing them and hindering them by his external works, as is so evident in the lives of some holy men and women. In these trying times, when faith in Christ and in God has largely disappeared, when the propaganda of a pagan culture is broadcast everywhere, and the forces of evil and falsehood rise up to cast God from His throne, who does not feel the power of the devil? Does it not appear that we are approaching that time when Satan will be released from the depths of hell to work his wonders and mislead, if possible, even the elect? (Apoc. 20:2; Matt. 24:24.)

Catholics are never without hope!

Catholics hope in Christ the King and in the Revelation He has entrusted to His true Church as they rely upon the maternal intercession of the Mediatrix of All Graces, she who is our very “life, our sweetness, and our hope,” to help us to live in such a way in this life so as to be prepared at all times to die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church and thus adore God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost in the unending Easter Sunday of glory in Heaven that the Newborn Christ the King came to win for us on the wood of the Holy Cross.

We must cry out for Christ the King in the midst of the madness of these times.

We must make reparation for our sins, including our own sins of indifference or lukewarness towards—if not outright rejection of—the necessity of viewing everything in the world through the eyes of true Faith at all times and without any exception whatsoever.

We must make use of this holy week of Our Lady’s Expectation to pray her Most Holy Rosary, especially the Joyful Mysteries, with renewed fervor and with the authentic Supernatural Virtue of Hope that our souls will be prepared properly for the celebration of the Nativity the Baby Jesus on Christmas Day, and that they will be disposed to receive Him in Holy Communion with renewed fervor, purity, and devotion.

Appendix A

Father Benedict Baur on "O Divine Wisdom"

“O Wisdom, who camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly, come to teach us the way of prudence.”

O Wisdom! The Savior whom we shall find as a weak babe in the crib is the Wisdom which from eternity proceeds from the Father. The eternal Wisdom which comes to us in the person of the Savior, has devised everything that is: heaven and earth, angels and men, matter and spirit, the entire universe. It has formed all creatures and given them their outward form and their place in the order of creation. It has fixed the wonderful order of nature, and it governs its laws. The power of this gentle and mighty Spirit has its eternal designs upon the world and pervades and governs all that exists. Eternal Wisdom, resting as a child in the lap of Thy mother, I believe in Thee. How great Thou art in the works of Thy creation, how wonderful is the order of Thy universe, how merciful in the work of redemption, how sublimely humble in Thy crib, how divinely wise in the teachings of Thy gospel, how provident in the work of Thy holy Church! O divine Wisdom, let me understand Thee!

Divine Wisdom clothes itself in the nature of a man. It conceals itself in the weakness of a child. It chooses for itself, infancy, poverty, obedience, subjection, obscurity. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the produce of the prudent I will not reject. . . . Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but since we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews, indeed, a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.  . . . But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And the base things of the world and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are” (1 Cor.19 ff.).

Come, O Divine Wisdom, teach us the way of knowledge. We are unwise; we judge and speak according to the vain standards of the world, which is foolishness in the eyes of God. Come, O divine Wisdom, give us the true knowledge and the taste for what is eternal and divine. Inspire us with a thirst for God’s holy will help us seek God’s guidance and direction enlighten us in the teachings of the holy gospel, make us submissive to Thy holy Church. Strengthen us in the forgetfulness of self, and help us to reign ourselves to a position of obscurity if that be Thy holy will. Detach our hearts from resurgent pride. Give us wisdom that we may understand that “but one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42). “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Matt. 16:26.) The Holy Spirit would have us know that one degree of grace is worth more than all worldly possessions.

“The sensual man,” with only his natural ability, his unaided human talents, “perceiveth not these thing that are of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). Eternal Wisdom is foolishness to such a man. He cannot understand because he is not spiritually minded. The spiritual man is guided by the Holy Ghost, penetrates and values all things in the light of divine Wisdom, who “Himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ,” the eternal Wisdom (1 Cor. 2:15f.).

The wisdom of God appears to us in the crib, in poverty, in silence, in the weakness of childhood, in the gospel message: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who suffer persecution for Christ’s sake. The wisdom of God is made manifest in the foolishness of the cross. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954, “O Divine Wisdom,” pp, 77-78.)

Appendix B

Father Baur on "O Adonai"

“O Addonai (O almighty God), and leader of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the burning bush and didst give to him the law on Mount Sinai, come with an outstretched arm to redeem us.”

O Addonai! The Redeemer whom we await was already the Redeemer in the Old Testament. He it was who appeared to Moses in the burning bush in the desert and gave him the commission to lead Israel out of the bondage of Egypt. Through Moses, He wrought great signs in Egypt and rescued His people from the power of the tyranny of the Pharaohs. He led His people with power through the Red Sea and gave them the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. He led them through the desert, provided food and drink, and ushered them into the Promised Land. He appears now also as Redeemer of the Church of the New Law. He is the Savior and guide of those have been baptized in the Church. Little child of the crib, so small, so weak, so silent, how mighty must You be to rescue us from passion, from temptation, and from the power of Satan! We believe in Your power, we trust in the strength of Your arm, we follow with confidence Your leadership and Your guidance.

O Adonai, O almighty God, stretch forth Thy arm and save us. The enemy of our salvation, the enemy of souls, the enemy of the Church rises with great power seeking to destroy belief in God, in Christ, and in the Christian religion. Men have wandered far from the true God; they have turned their backs on Him and made for themselves grave images. They have banished God from their thoughts and from their lives. God is a disturbing element which they would be glad to be rid of. Any other molestation they will gladly suffer, no matter how foolish and disturbing it is.

“Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and ye gates thereof be very desolate with the Lord. For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2: 12 f.). Both men and nations have lost all peace and tranquility. All virtues, innocence, fidelity, honor, honesty, and even a man’s word may be bought for gold. Scarcely one man can be found who trusts another. Nation has risen against nation, and man against man. Few are they who are faithful to their duty. The spirit of self-sacrifice is rarely to be found. Whether men read, study, or work, their actions are characterized by a spirit of restlessness and disquietude. All their striving produces few results, except to make them more tired, empty, and soulless. And yet they perish in their efforts to do without God and without Christ. Thus they live in spite of the fact “there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4: 12.). Only He, the almighty God, can save us.

Thou art He “who didst appear to Moses in the burning bush,” “I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of the rigor of them out of the hands of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, into a land that floweth with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:7f.). Thus spoke the Lord to Moses from the bush which burned but has not been consumed, which is a figure of God’s condescension to assume the weakness of human nature. The human nature of Christ is united to the burning divine nature, and yet it is not consumed.

As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. “Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. . . . I am who am” (Exod. 3:5, 14).

O Adonai, almighty God! Mighty in the weakness of a child, and in the helplessness of the Crucified! Thou, almighty God, mighty in the wonders that Thou hast worked. Mighty in guiding, sustaining, and developing Thy Church! “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Thou art mighty in the healing and redemption of souls, mighty in Thy love for us, who are so unworthy of Thy love. Instant are Thou in mercy, and all-sufficient in every need. Come and save us.

“Come with an outstretched arm to redeem us.” This is the cry of the Church for the second coming of Christ on the last day. The return of the Saviour brings us plentiful redemption. “Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you” (Matt. 25:34).  (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World,  Volume I, “O Adonai,” pp. 79-80.)

Appendix C

Father Baur on "O Root of Jesse"

“O Root of Jesse, who standest as an ensign of the people, before whom kings keep silence and the Gentiles shall make supplication, come to deliver us and tarry not.”

Christ the King, the Lord! Divine Wisdom, Adonai, the powerful God, is at the same time man with flesh and blood at the house of Jesse, the father of King David. The glory that once clothed the royal family has faded and withered, leaving only a blighted and withered root. But from this root is to spring a glorious blossom, the King of the world. “He shall rule from sea to sea and from river unto the ends of the earth. Before Him the Ethiopians shall fall down and His enemies shall lick the ground. The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents: the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall serve Him” (Ps. 71:8-11). To Him God has said, “Thou art My Son. . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Ps. 2:7 f.).

“He shall be great. . . . and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David, His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob forever. And of His kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32. f.). In the face of Roman power He shall declare, “I am a King” (John 18:37). On the throne of the cross they shall proclaim His kingship in the three universal languages of the time: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19). He will send forth apostles, for all power is given Him “in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, . . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 29: 18-20). Before Him a Herod, a Domitian, and a Diocletian shall tremble. A Julian will be obliged to confess, “Galilean, Thou hast conquered.”

He will establish His kingdom in the world, a kingdom of truth, of justice, and of grace. He who was cast off by men and fastened to the cross, will make that cross a throne. The Lord rules as a king from His cross. He is remembered gratefully and loved by millions who leave all earthly things, father and mother and all else, to follow Him. They devote their health, their life, even their blood, to His service. Root of Jesse. Thou standest as an ensign of the nations, and kings are silent in reverence before Thee. 

“Come to deliver us and tarry not.” The world cries out for Christ its King, who shall cast out the Prince of this world (John 12:31). The prince of this world established his power over men as a result of original sin. He exercises his lordship very efficiently, and has led man men into apostasy and idolatry, and has brought them into the temples where he himself is adored. He even dared to approach our Lord, after His fast of forty days in the desert to tempt Him to fall down before him and adore him. Even after we had been delivered from the servitude of Satan through the death of Christ on the cross, the prince of this world attempts to exercise his power over us. “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Like a bird of prey he hovers above us waiting for a favorable opportunity to seize us and to lead us into sin. Often enough he transforms “himself into an angel of light” (1 Cor. 11:14). The sworn enemy and adversary of Christ and of all that is good, he devotes his entire energy and his great intelligence to the task of establishing a kingdom of sin and darkness which is opposed to God and to Christianity.

Satan establishes his power over deluded over men in a way that is perfectly obvious. When he has gained control over the body of man, he uses it for his own purposes, as though it were he who actually controls and animates the body in place of the human soul. He often exerts his influence over men by harassing them and hindering them by his external works, as is so evident in the lives of some holy men and women. In these trying times, when faith in Christ and in God has largely disappeared, when the propaganda of a pagan culture is broadcast everywhere, and the forces of evil and falsehood rise up to cast God from His throne, who does not feel the power of the devil? Does it not appear that we are approaching that time when Satan will be released from the depths of hell to work his wonders and mislead, if possible, even the elect? (Apoc. 20:2; Matt. 24:24.)

“Come, tarry not.” Observe not how thoroughly the world of today has submitted to the reign of Satan. Mankind has abandoned the search for what is good and holy. Loyalty, justice, freedom, love, and mutual trust are no longer highly regarded. Establish, O God, Thy kingdom among us, a kingdom established upon truth, justice, and peace. “Come, tarry not.” “Thy kingdom come.” (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954. pp. 81-82.)