On the Feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael the Archangel on Mount Gargano

Each of us fights a daily battle against the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Saint Paul noted this in his Epistle to the Ephesians:

Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high place. Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace:

In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints. (Ephesians 6: 11-18.)

Saint Michael the Archangel is the one who carries that "sword of the Spirit," having struck down Lucifer when he rebelled against God:

And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Apocalypse 12: 7-9.)

Dom Prosper Gueranger explained the origins of devotion to Saint Michael the Archangel and his role in the economy of salvation up to the time he wrote The Liturgical Year from 1841 to 1875 in his in his reflection for today's feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael the Archangel:

David foretold that the Emmanuel’s coming into this world would be greeted by the Angels, and that they would humbly adore him on his first appearing among us.We saw this prophecy fulfilled on the Night ever blessed, when Mary brought forth the Fruit of her womb. The Angelic choirs sang one of their heavenly hymns, which led the Shepherds to the Stable; we blended our songs with theirs, in homage to our Infant-God. The Resurrection of our Emmanuel was sure to be honored by the presence of these blessed Spirits, who had witnessed, with amazement and trembling, the humiliations and cruelties of his Passion. The moment he passed through the barrier that imprisoned him in his sepulcher, an Angel, with a face beaming as the sun, and garments white as snow, came and rolled back the Stone, and proclaimed to the holy Women that He whom they were seeking had risen. When they entered the cave of the Sepulcher, two other Angels, clad in white robes, appeared to them, and repeated the tidings of Jesus’ triumph.

Let us reverently honor these princely heralds of our deliverance, and consider how respectfully they cluster round Jesus their King and God, during the forty days after his Resurrection. They adore this glorified Humanity, which they are soon to see raised up to the highest heavens, and throned at the Father’s right hand. They rejoice with us in the happiness brought to us by this Paschal Feast, which restores immortality to us in the person of our Risen Savior; and thus, as St. Gregory told us a few days back, “it is the Feast of the Angels, because, by its recalling us to heaven, it fills up their number.” It was but right, therefore, that Paschal Time should devote one of its days to honoring the Angelic Spirits. Eight days previous to the Annunciation, we kept the feast of St. Gabriel, our Lady’s honored messenger; today, it is St. Michael, and Archangel and Prince of the heavenly host, that is to receive our love and praise. He himself selected this day by appearing on it and leaving us a pledge of his presence and protection.

The very name of Michael urges us to honor this glorious Spirit; it is a cry of enthusiasm and fidelity, for it signifies: “Who is like unto God?” Satan trembles at hearing this name, for it reminds him of the noble protest wherewith the bright Archangel answered the call of the rebel angels. Michael proved his strength and prowess when he fought the great battle in heaven. On that account, he was made the Guardian and Protector of God’s people—of the Jews first, and afterwards, of the Christian Church, for the Synagogues forfeited all her honors. Michael now watches over Jesus’ Spouse, our mother; he supports her in her trials, and she wins no triumph in which he has not had some hand.

But we are not to supposed that the holy Archangel is so engaged in looking after the general interests of Christ’s kingdom on earth that he cannot attend to the prayers of each individual member of the Church. God has given him a compassionate love for men; and there is a not a single soul that escapes his notice. He wields the sword in defense of the Spouse of Christ; he wars with the dragon, who is ever lying in wait for the Woman and her Child;—but at the same time, he is attentive to each one of us; for, after having confessed our sins to Almighty God, and to the Blessed Mary ever a Virgin, we acknowledge them likewise to Blessed Michael the Archangel and beseech him to pray for us to the Lord our God.

He assists at every death-bed, for his special office is to receive the souls of the elect, on their quitting the flesh. He, with loving solicitude and princely bearing, presents them to the Light Eternal, and introduces them into the House of God’s glory. It is holy Church herself that tells us, in the words of her Liturgy, of these prerogatives of the great Archangel. She teaches us that he has been set over Paradise, and that God has given him the charge of leading to heaven the souls of them that are to be received there. On the Last Day, when our Risen Jesus is to appear on the clouds of heaven to judge mankind, Michael will have to fulfill a ministry of awful import—he, with the rest of the Angels, will have to separate the good from the bad, all of whom will then have resumed their bodies in the general resurrection. Our Catholic Forefathers, in the Middle Ages, were fond of representing the holy Archangel engaged in this dread function. They put him standing at the foot of Jesus’ judgment-seat, and holding a scale, in which he is weighing the souls of men and their works.

Devotion to St. Michael was sure to spread through the Church, especially after the worship of idols had been banished from the various countries, and men were no longer tempted to give divine honor to creatures. Constantine built in honor of the great Archangel a celebrated Church called Michaëlion; and at the time of Constantinople’s falling under the power of the Turks, there were no less than fifteen Churches that bore the name of Saint Michael, either in the City or the suburbs. In other parts of Christendom, this devotion took root only by degrees; and it was by the holy Archangel’s appearing to men that the Faithful were prompted to have recourse to him. These apparitions were local, and for reasons which to us might seem of secondary importance: but God, who, from little causes, produces great effects, made use of them whereby to excite Christians to have confidence in their heavenly protector. The Greeks celebrate the apparition that took place at Chone, the ancient Colossa, in Phrygia. There was, in that city, a Church dedicated to St. Michael, and it was frequently visited by a holy man named Archippus, who was violently persecuted by the pagans. One day, when Archippus was at his devotions in his favorite St. Michael’s, his enemies resolved to destroy both him and the Church. Hard by, ran a brook which flowed into the river Lycus: this they turned off, and flooded the ground on which stood the Church. Suddenly, there appeared the Archangel St. Michael, holding a rod in his hand: the water immediately receded, and flowed into a deep gulf, near Colossa, where the Lycus empties itself and disappears. The date of this apparition is not certain, beyond its having occurred at the period when the pagans were numerous enough in Colossa to harass the Christians.

Another apparition, which encouraged devotion to St. Michael in Italy, took place on Mount Gargano, in Apulia; it is the one honored  by today’s feast. A third happened on Mount Tomba, on the coast of Normandy: we will commemorate it on the 16th October. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael the Archangel.)

The Divine Office contains the details of Saint Michael the Archangel’s Apparition on Mount Gargano in Italy:

That the blessed Archangel Michael hath oftentimes been seen of men is attested on the authority of the Holy Bible, and also by the ancient traditions of the Saints. For this reason such visions are held in remembrance in many places. As of old time did the Synagogue of the Jews, so now doth the Church of God venerate Michael as her watcher and defender. But during the papacy of Gelasius I. the summit of Mount Gargano in Apulia, at whose foot lieth the town of Siponto, was the scene of an extraordinary appearance of this same Archangel Michael.

And it came to pass on this wise. A certain man had a bull grazing with the flock upon Mount Gargano, and it strayed. And when they had sought it for a long while they found it jammed in the mouth of a cavern. Then one that stood there shot an arrow at it to slay it, but the arrow turned round and came back against him that had shot it. They therefore that saw it, and all those that heard it, were sore afraid because of that which had come to pass, so that no man dared any more to draw near to the cavern. But when they had sought counsel of the Bishop of Siponto, he answered, that it behooved to seek the interpretation from God, and proclaimed three days of fasting and prayer.

After three days the Archangel Michael gave warning to the Bishop that that place was under his protection, and that he had thus pointed out by a sign that he wished that worship should be offered to God there, with remembrance of himself and of the Angels. Then the Bishop and the citizens made haste and came to the cavern and when they found that the form thereof was somewhat after the fashion of a Church, they began to perform the public worship of God therein which sanctuary hath been glorified with many miracles. It was not long after these things that Pope Boniface IV. hallowed the Church of St. Michael on Hadrian's Mole at Rome, on the 29th day of September, on the which day the Church also holdeth in remembrance All Angels. But this present day is hallowed in remembrance of the manifestation of the Archangel Michael. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael the Archangel, May 8.)

The glories of Saint Michael the Archangel were heralded in the following prayer written by Dom Prosper Gueranger:

How beautiful art thou, O Michael, in thy heaven-made armor, giving glory to the God whose enemy thou overcamest! Thine humble and fervent eye is fixed on the throne of the Jehovah whose rights thou defendedst, and who gave thee the victory. Thy sublime cry: “Who is like unto God?” roused the faithful legions, and became thy name and thy crown. It will remind us, for all eternity, of thy fidelity to our Creator, and thy triumph over the dragon. Meanwhile, we enjoy thy loving protection; we are thy happy clients.

Guardian Angel of Holy Church! now is the time for thee to exert all the might of thine arm. Satan is furious in his efforts against the noble Spouse of thy Master; brandish thy bright sword, and give battle to this implacable enemy. The Kingdom of Christ is shaken to its very foundations. Rome is in danger of seeing the Vicar of Christ dethroned within her walls. Is it that the reign of the Man of Sin is about to be proclaimed on the earth? Are we near that Last Day, when this guilty world having been destroyed by fire, thou art to exercise, in the name of the Sovereign Judge, the terrible office of separating the goats from the sheep?—If this earth is still to exist; if the mission of the Church is not yet completed; is it not time for thee, O Michael! to show the Dragon of hell that he may not, with impunity, insult on this earth the God who created it, who redeemed it, and whose name is King of kings, and Lord of lord? The torrent of error and crime is unceasingly dragging the world to the brink of the precipice; save it, O glorious Archangel, by confounding the dark plots which are laid for its destruction!

Thou, O Michael, art the Protector of our souls in their passage from time to eternity. During this present life, thine eye is upon our wants, and thine ear open to our prayers. Though awed by the brightness of thy glory, we love thee, dear Prince of heaven! and we live happy and contented beneath the shadow of thy wings. In a few days, or, at most, years, our holy Mother the Church will be performing her last sacred rites over our lifeless remains; she will pray for us to our Heavenly Father, that we may be delivered from the lion’s mouth, and that the standard-bearer St. Michael, may bring us into the holy light. Watch over us now, O holy Archangel, lest we should then not deserve thy protection. The Dragon is ever threatening us; he makes no secret of his wishing to devour us. Teach us, O Michael, to repeat thy beautiful words: “Who is like unto God?” God’s honor, the rights he has over us, our obligation to be faithful to him, and serve him, and confess him as our Lord in all times and places—oh, yes! the deep-rooted sentiment of all this must be our shield in our danger, and the armor wherewith, like thyself, we must fight and win the battle. But we want some of thy sturdy courage, which resulted from the love thou hadst within thee. Oh! pray for us, that we too may love this our common Lord and Master; then shall we be invincible. Satan cannot make head against a creature that is filled with the love of the great God.

This God created thee, O Michael! and thou lovedst him as thy Creator; but as to us, he not only created, he redeemed us, yea and at the price of his own Blood! What, then, should be the intensity of our love for him! Strengthen this love in our hearts; and since we are fighting under thy leadership, guide us, inspirit us; let thy look give us courage; ward off from us the blows of the enemy’s sword. We venture to hope that thou wilt be present at our last moments, O standard-bearer of our salvation! In return for our tender devotion towards thee, deign to keep guard round our death-bed, cover it with thy shield. If the Dragon see the flash of thy sword, he will not dare to come near us. May our soul, on leaving the body, throw herself with affection into thine arms! Cast her not from thee, O holy Archangel, when she seeks to cling to thee; carry her to the judgment-seat, cover beneath thy wings, calm her fears; and oh! may the Lord, thy Master, bid thee bear her speedily to the kingdom of eternal bliss! (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

The angels are here to assist us, in other words, as we call upon them to help us scale the heights of sanctity. They help to prepare us to receive That which they cannot receive: the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the God-Man Himself in Holy Communion. Unable to receive the One they serve and adore, the angels take delight in the fact that they help us to be prepared for receiving Him worthily each time we kneel at the altar rail and have placed on our tongues the Most Blessed Sacrament. They take delight in helping us to more and more devoted to the Queen of the Angels, Our Blessed Mother, and in imitating the virtues and the Catholic witness of the other saints. They plead for us to cooperate with both sanctifying and actual graces to bear whatever crosses come our way in this vale of tears so that we can, as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, prosper under them unto eternal happiness in Heaven.

The angels are pleased when we meditated upon the truths of the Faith, poring through the pages of Holy Writ to mine the treasures that prompted Saint Jerome to spend most of his life in the work of preparing a proper and accurate translation of the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek into the Latin Vulgate, which was then, by the way, the language of the people (a fact that is essential to point out to Protestants: Saint Jerome, a Catholic priest and theologian, wanted to make the entirety of the Bible accessible to the people in the lingua franca of his day, Latin).

The angels are pleased when we read about the lives of the saints, especially those like Saint Jerome who did battle for Our Lord against his enemies within the Church. Father John Laux wrote of Saint Jerome, "He was always in controversy with some one, and in the heat of the fight his quick temper only too often got the better of him. . . . His Dialogue on Pelagianism, one of the finest of his controversial writings, cost him dear" (Father John Laux, Church History, p. 138).

Yes, the angels are pleased when we respond to their promptings to spend our time immersed in the things of Heaven, which is the destination to which they have been charged by God to lead us as we make our pilgrimage here on earth.

Saint Michael remains as our helper today to do battle with the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil in our own lives.

Indeed, he appeared with Our Lady on Tepeyac Hill on December 12, 1531, plainly visible in the miraculous image left on the tilma of the Juan Diego, to remind us that he does battle with the demons abroad in the world, and there were demons aplenty in the savage land of the Americas prior to the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the Sixteenth Century and prior to the miraculous conversion of over nine million indigenous peoples out of barbaric superstition to the true Faith. Saint Michael stands ready, as we know, to do battle with all of the evil, anti-Incarnational forces of Modernity in the world and of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Although there is controversy over the exact nature of circumstances that gave rise to Pope Leo XIII's composition of the shorter (1884) and longer (1888) versions of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, there can be no controversy over the efficacy of praying either one or both of these prayers on a daily basis. The forces of evil are indeed arrayed all against us. Indeed, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a veritable man of sin, has shown that he revels in that which is impure and indecent, mocking “complicated doctrines” while preaching a “gospel of love” that does nothing but reaffirm unrepentant sinners in their lives of degradation and reaffirms pro-abortion statists in their goal to vilify those who can sin by its proper name.

Consider just some of the devil's assaults upon our senses that many of us must face as we go about our daily business.

There are billboards that display the most hideous, indecent images and the kind of foul language that was confined eons ago to locker rooms and the docks.

We have to shop at pharmacies, which carry so many instruments of death today, and at supermarkets that assault our senses with horrible "music" and, especially during this time of year, with absolutely demonic images of the macabre in preparation for what has become, sadly, a cultural celebration of evil on All Hallows Eve, October 31.

Immodesty, one of the many fruits of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the rise of naturalism and all of its manifestations (religious liberty, separation of Church and State, civil liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of press, pluralism, religious indifferentism, materialism, positivism, utilitarianism, etc.), abounds everywhere.

We need the protection of Saint Michael the Archangel and of our Guardian Angels to help us to shield ourselves as best as possible from these evil influences and to pray for the conversion of those responsible for their promotion and/or who are immersed in the activities that flow from these wicked influences, which have enticed even so many Catholics to be blase as over four thousand innocent preborn babies are put to death by means of surgical abortion every day in the United States of America alone.

We need the help of Saint Michael and our Guardian Angels to help us to wade our way through the apostasies and betrayals being promoted in the name of Catholicism by the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The deceptions of the present moment are nothing other than diabolically conceived and executed. There has never been a time in the history of the Catholic Church when men claiming to be Sovereign Pontiffs have praised false religions and have called their places of false worship as sacred. Worse yet, there has never been a time when so many Catholics who knew better sought not to defend the honor and glory and majesty of God and served instead as apologists for the apostates who have seized upon the ecclesiastical offices and engaged in the sort of blasphemies and sacrileges that inspired countless millions of Catholics, who did not want to give even that appearance of the approval of such evils, to give up their lives. We need to pray to Saint Michael the Archangel to defend us in battle against falling prey to quietism in the mist of these apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges.

None of the apostasies or blasphemies or sacrileges promoted by conciliarism is a minor thing. It is not a minor thing when a man who believes himself to be the Vicar of Christ genuflects before a heretical and schismatic "bishops," as Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul  VI, did in 1964. The Vicar of Christ genuflects before no other man on the face of this earth. He is the Visible Head of the true Church founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb. Would Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ genuflect before any man?

This was not a minor matter. This was a grave sacrilege, demonstrative of Montini's belief that his authority as a putative Vicar of Christ was not universal in its scope.

Saint Teresa of Avila's words below, which will be repeated several times in this article, are a rejoinder to those who think that such symbolic gestures are but "minor" matters not indicative of a loss of the Catholic Faith:

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

Similarly, it has not a minor matter when the conciliar "pontiffs" have praised the "Second" Vatican Council as "essential to the faith." Some non-sedevacantist Catholics have said that the "Second" Vatican Council bound nothing upon the consciences of Catholics, which is directly contrary to the very words of Paul The Sick himself at this hideous council's close on December 8, 1965.

How can a "council" that is said, falsely, to have bound "nothing" upon Catholics be "essential to the faith"?

Statements are either true or false of their nature. Do false statements no longer matter?

Is this just nothing, an "exaggeration" about which we should not be concerned in the slightest?

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

Is it not supposed to matter that the various apostasies of conciliarism (the new ecclesiology, religious liberty, ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue, the separation of Church and State, episcopal collegiality) have been condemned by the true popes of the Catholic Church? (See: Father Curzio Nitoglia's comprehensive and most readable The “Magisterium” of Vatican II. for a good analysis of Lumen Gentium and of another conciliar defection from the Faith, episcopal collegiality.)

Does it not matter that quasi-official "agreements" (The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised) ) are at odds with the true teaching of the Catholic Church represent the actual mind of the conciliar officials, including that of the putative pontiffs themselves?

Is it possible to dissent privately, no less to promote publicly, from articles contained in the Deposit of Faith and to remain a Catholic in good standing?

Is every offense against truth and holiness and the honor and glory due the Most Blessed Trinity just an "absurdity" or a mere "aberration: that does not reflect the actual effects of conciliarism in the lives of ordinary Catholics at the parish level?

Is it not supposed to matter that a man who considers himself, albeit falsely, to be the Vicar of Christ walks into a mosque, taking off his shoes so as to signify that he is in a holy place, and then assumes a Mohammedan prayer position as he turns in the direction of Mecca?

Nothing?

An exaggeration?

Is it not supposed to matter that this same putative "pontiff" has personally esteemed the symbols of false religions with his own hands and has prayed at the Western Wall without invoking the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Nothing? An exaggeration?

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

Is it not supposed to matter that an official representative of the putative Vicar of Christ at the time on Sunday, November 26, 2006, the now-retired but nevertheless busy-behind-the-scenes Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, gave his permission for the world premiere of a motion picture, The Nativity Story, in the Paul VI Audience Hall that blasphemes the Mother of God by denying the effects of her Immaculate Conception in its portrayal of her as a sulky, moody and disobedient teenager?

Nothing, an exaggeration?

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine.)

Each one of own sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer unspeakable horrors in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and caused Our Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be thrust through with Seven Swords of Sorrow. Each one of the apostasies of conciliarism has caused Our Lord to suffer a mystical Passion, Death and Burial in the past fifty-one years. No one of them is minor, no matter how many semantic devices are used to explain them away or to claim that they do not "matter" because they are not considered by conciliar apologists to be "officially" binding. Each of them is offensive to God and harmful to souls, millions upon millions of whom have been convinced in the past forty years that the Catholic Church taught error in the past and that everything is now open for discussion and debate and reconsideration.

Some try to defend the conciliarists, up to and including the Argentine Apostate himself, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, by saying that they, the conciliarists, remain Catholics in good standing because they believe in some "core" beliefs of the Catholic Faith. Apart from the fact that Pope Leo XIII stated quite clearly in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, that those who fall from the Faith in one thing falls from the Faith in its entirety, Pope Benedict XV completely rejected any notion of a Catholic who could deny some of the truths of the Faith (say, religious liberty and the condemnation of the separation of Church and State) and remain a  believer in the Catholic Faith:

Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: ‘This is the Catholic Faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved’ (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim ‘Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,’ only let him endeavor to be in reality what he calls himself.

Besides, the Church demands from those who have devoted themselves to furthering her interests, something very different from the dwelling upon profitless questions; she demands that they should devote the whole of their energy to preserve the faith intact and unsullied by any breath of error, and follow most closely him whom Christ has appointed to be the guardian and interpreter of the truth. There are to be found today, and in no small numbers, men, of whom the Apostle says that: "having itching ears, they will not endure sound doctrine: but according to their own desires they will heap up to themselves teachers, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables" (II Tim. iv. 34). Infatuated and carried away by a lofty idea of the human intellect, by which God's good gift has certainly made incredible progress in the study of nature, confident in their own judgment, and contemptuous of the authority of the Church, they have reached such a degree of rashness as not to hesitate to measure by the standard of their own mind even the hidden things of God and all that God has revealed to men. Hence arose the monstrous errors of "Modernism," which Our Predecessor rightly declared to be "the synthesis of all heresies," and solemnly condemned. We hereby renew that condemnation in all its fulness, Venerable Brethren, and as the plague is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: "It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring" (Job xxxi. 12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savours of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down." In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way."  (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

Pope Pius XI, writing in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, also rejected any notion of a distinction between "fundamental" and allegedly "non-fundamental" doctrines of the Catholic Faith:

Besides this, in connection with things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause, namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no such distinction. For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.  (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

Catholics must reject the "teachings" of conciliarism. It is not possible to accept the condemned proposition of religious liberty and claim that one is upholding Catholic teaching. In addition to the many condemnations of religious liberty that have been cited in past articles on this site, The Syllabus of Errors, a document issued by Pope Pius IX that has been specifically rejected by Joseph Ratzinger (who called the text of Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965, "countersyllabus of errors"), did so in no uncertain terms:

78. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852.

79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. -- Allocution "Nunquam fore," Dec. 15, 1856.

80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution "Jamdudum cernimus," March 18, 1861. (Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)

One of the hallmarks of the conciliar "popes" has been their promotion of this very heresy of religious liberty. He has even gone so far as to blaspheme the first martyrs of the Church as having died for this heresy. Nothing, an exaggeration?

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

The condemnation of religious liberty, which was offered by Popes Pius VI, VII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII in no uncertain terms, was still being reiterated as late as Pope Pius XII's address to Italian lawyers, Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953:

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

The conciliar "popes" have told us over and over again that religious liberty is a fundamental "right" of the human being. If this is so, of course, then the Catholic Church had it wrong for nearly two millennia.

God the Holy Ghost, the very Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, failed Holy Mother Church?

Nothing?

An exaggeration?

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

What did Jorge Mario Bergoglio say about the evil of Planned Barrenhood while he was in the United States of America two years ago?

Don’t you remember?

Of course you do.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

We need Saint Michael the Archangel to help us to recognize that each defection from the Faith is serious, that it is impossible to produce peace in the soul and hence within and among nations if souls do not accept the totality of the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church and if they do not have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace. There is no path to "peace," whether personal or social, that does not run through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and hence to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Not so for the conciliarists, obviously. Not so for the conciliarists, the insane dreamers who believe that "inter-religious dialogue" is the path to "peace" and "justice" in the world.

We need the intercession of Saint Michael the Archangel to protect against falling into the belief that none of the apostasies or blasphemies or sacrileges or actions of the conciliarists contrary to the Faith and thus to good of souls represents nothing but "an exaggeration."

We need Saint Michael, who defeated Lucifer and his minions in battle and thrust them down into Hell, to defeat the diabolically-clever forces of conciliarism that have convinced so many believing Catholics that it is no longer necessary to oppose heresy openly, that it not necessary to distance oneself, openly and publicly, from heresies and those who promote them, hating heresies as much as God Himself hates them and desires to have them eradicated from the face of this earth. 

Saint Jerome noted  in his day that, "The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian." Most every Catholic today finds himself immersed in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, either oblivious to its errors and apostasies and sacrileges or intent on trying to find some way to reconcile mutually contradictory principles with each other. 

As I wrote in September of 2013, To Be Blind To The Truth At This Point Is Irresponsible. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has removed all shadow of complexity and paradox and contradiction to speak plainly of the revolutionary goals of conciliarism while disparaging believing Catholics at almost every turn imaginable. Any believing Catholic who still labors under the misapprehension that this figure of Antichrist is the Vicar of Christ on earth, no less states that publicly, is showing himself to be as harmful to the integrity of doctrine as Jorge is as it is high time for all Catholics to understand how the Society of Saint Pius X's "resist while recognize" position is a rejection of Catholic teaching about the true nature of the papacy. No One Can Resist a True and Legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

Our Lady, the Queen of Angels, and the Prince of the Heavenly Host of Angels, Saint Michael the Archangel, to remain steadfast in our adherence to the truths of the Catholic Faith without making even the slightest concessions to conciliarism or to the "legitimacy" of its false shepherds. Our Lady and Saint Michael will help us to take heart from these words of Saint Jerome, which describe what happened after the world awoke to find itself Arian:

The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian. Some, therefore, remained in their own communion, others began to send letters to those Confessors who as adherents of Athanasius were in exile; several despairingly bewailed the better relations into which they had entered. But a few, true to human nature, defended their mistake as an exhibition of wisdom. The ship of the Apostles was in peril, she was driven by the wind, her sides beaten with the waves: no hope was now left. But the Lord awoke and bade the tempest cease; the beast died, and there was a calm once again. To speak more plainly, all the bishops who had been banished from their sees, by the clemency of the new emperor returned to their Churches. Then Egypt welcomed the triumphant Athanasius; then Hilary returned from the battle to the embrace of the Church of Gaul; then Eusebius returned and Italy laid aside her mourning weeds. The bishops who had been caught in the snare at Ariminum and had unwittingly come to be reported of as heretics, began to assemble, while they called the Body of our Lord and all that is holy in the Church to witness that they had not a suspicion of anything faulty in their own faith. We thought, said they, the words were to be taken in their natural meaning, and we had no suspicion that in the Church of God, the very home of simplicity and sincerity in the confession of truth, one thing could be kept secret in the heart, another uttered by the lips. We thought too well of bad men and were deceived. We did not suppose that the bishops of Christ were fighting against Christ. (Saint Jerome, Dialogue Against the Luciferians.)

There is much of relevance to our own situation today in the description of Arianism provided by Saint Jerome, is there not?

Saint Michael the Archangel appeared to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos in the year before Our Lady appeared to them in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal. He prepared their hearts for them to receive Our Lady's Fatima Message, which implores us to make reparation to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for the conversion of poor sinners, especially by means of her Most Holy Rosary.

Saint Michael wants to prepare our hearts to fulfill Our Lady's Fatima Message in our own lives, thus making us more ready to call upon his angelic assistance to defend us in battle against the wickedness and the snares of the devil. Those snares are laid for us in the midst of the anti-Incarnational world of Modernity and in the very wicked ethos of Modernism that is in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Our Lady and Saint Joseph and Saint Michael and our own Guardian Angels will help us to remain ever faithful in this time of apostasy and betrayal, making us ever desirous to offer up our daily prayers and penances of mortifications and sufferings and humiliations to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Consider the following passage from the text of the longer version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer that was composed by Pope Leo XIII in 1888:

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.

While some restrict the meaning of this beautiful prayer to little more than a catalog of the events that had occurred in Italy during the aftermath of the overthrow of the Papal States on September 20, 1870, is to ignore the prophetic nature of this prayer, which was certainly inspired by Heavenly forces.

After all, the anti-Incarnational age of Modernity was shaped in large part by the "light" of Protestantism and its off-shoot, the so-called "Enlightenment," of which the Illuminati have been a major driving force behind-the-scenes.

"Saint John Paul II" gave Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism the "Luminous Mysteries" in 2002.

Ah, the "Second" Vatican Council was really the flowering of the "Enlightenment" in what most people in the world, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, believe is the Catholic Church, right?

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is simply following the "light" with all of his dismissals of the importance of doctrine as nothing other than meaningless "rules" concocted by mere men to enslave the "joy" of the human spirit and to restrain the outflowing of God's mercy, right?

Look at the passage from the longer version of the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel to see who the source of this supposed "light" is and to see once and for all its truly prophetic, not merely historic, value:

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.

The lords of Modernity in the world and of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism are guided by the same "light," which is the former light bearer himself turned into the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer/Satan.

Although some rationalists do not accept it as such because they cannot find written "proof" to satisfy their disbelief, Pope Leo XIII had a vision at Holy Mass on October 13, 1884, thirty-three years before Our Lady's final apparition to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, wherein he learned that Satan would be given seventy-five to one hundred years to destroy Holy Mother Church.

Here is an account on the website of Saint Joseph's Catholic Church in Wayne, Michigan:

Exactly 33 years to the day prior to the great Miracle of the Sun in Fatima, that is, on October 13, 1884, Pope Leo XIII had a remarkable vision. When the aged Pontiff had finished celebrating Mass in his private Vatican Chapel, attended by a few Cardinals and members of the Vatican staff, he suddenly stopped at the foot of the altar. He stood there for about 10 minutes, as if in a trance, his face ashen white. Then, going immediately from the Chapel to his office, he composed the prayer to St. Michael, with instructions it be said after all Low Masses everywhere. When asked what had happened, he explained that, as he was about to leave the foot of the altar, he suddenly heard voices - two voices, one kind and gentle, the other guttural and harsh. They seemed to come from near the tabernacle. As he listened, he heard the following conversation:

The guttural voice, the voice of Satan in his pride, boasted to Our Lord: "I can destroy your Church." The gentle voice of Our Lord: "You can? Then go ahead and do so." Satan: "To do so, I need more time and more power." Our Lord: "How much time? How much power? Satan: "75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who will give themselves over to my service." Our Lord: "You have the time, you will have the power. Do with them what you will. (As found at: The Vision of Pope Leo XIII.)

The jaws of hell will never prevail against Holy Mother Church, she who is the spotless, virginal mystical spouse of her Divine Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

This does not mean that the adversary will not win a few battles now and again in our own lives (perhaps more than we would care to admit, which is why we must make a thorough Examen of Conscience every night before going to sleep) and in the life of the Church Militant on earth. Anyone who does not believe that this has been case in the Church Militant on earth these past fifty-five years is refusing to see the plain truth that is before their very eyes.

Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary has won many important battles in defense of the Faith. Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary will win the battle against conciliarism at the present time. We need to do our part by praying, especially in this month of the Most Holy Rosary, as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit, making sure as well to pray to Saint Michael the Archangel after we conclude our meditation on the fifteen mysteries of our salvation contained within the psalter given by Our Lady herself to Saint Dominic de Guzman:

Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in praelio, contra nequitias et insidias diaboli esto praesidium: Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur, tuque, Princeps militiae caelestis, satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen.

Invoking Our Lady and the heavenly court of angels, may it be our privilege to plant a few seeds as her consecrated slaves for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of herself, Our Immaculate Queen. We need simply to trust in her maternal intercession and to invoke the help of Saint Michael and the other angels to avoid the traps of naturalism and conciliarism so that, as Pope Saint Pius X prayed throughout his pontificate, all things will be restored in Christ.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

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

All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, 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.

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls.  

Response:  Amen.