Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV's Anthropocentric Journey to Spain

There are times when a conciliar “pope” or “bishop” comes very close to approximating Catholic truth on this or that subject.

In this regard, of course, it must be remembered that Modernism is synthesis of all heresies, is a mixture of truth and error and that Modernists can sound like they are preaching the Catholic Faith on one occasion and then preach heresy or error on another occasion with a perfectly clear conscience as they do not see that there is any contradiction between the Catholic Faith and Modernism’s corruption of it by means of dogmatic evolutionism.

Pope Saint Pius X warned us about the doublemindedness of Modernists in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:

18. This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people, they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

In this regard, therefore, it should be kept in mind that each of the conciliar “popes” have made statements and/or issued documents that were fully consonant with the Catholic Faith while also promoting doctrines that have been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church, participating in one sacrilegious event after another, claiming that “religions” are a path to “peace,” engaging in inter-religious “prayer services” that have treated non-Catholic clergymen as legitimate “ministers of the Gospel,” making it appear as though dogmatic evolution has not been condemned by Holy Mother, and promoting one condemned novelty after another its ongoing “reconciliation” with the world.

Much was made about Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV’s remarks to members of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales, which consists of a Chamber of Deputies and Senate, on Monday, June 8, 2026, the Fifth Day in the Octave of Corpus Christi because he made the following reference to the defense of human life:

This discernment begins with a fundamental affirmation: every truly just society is built upon the recognition of the inviolable dignity of the human person. Such dignity precedes any concession by the State and cannot be subordinated to shifting social consensus or the whims of the majority at any given moment (cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the German Federal Parliament, 22 September 2011). It belongs to every human being by the very fact of their existence, and for this reason, it must guide every positive legal system. The Christian faith proclaims it on the basis of Revelation; human reason can recognize it as a requirement inscribed in the truth of man (cf. ibid.). When this conviction remains alive, the law becomes a safeguard for all and a guarantee against the imposition of particular interests and agendas.

On this basis, it falls to me today to speak a calm and firm word to those who bear the grave responsibility of legally ordering social coexistence. This coexistence can be threatened by the throwaway culture, as Pope Francis so often warned (cf. Address to the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, 27 September 2021). In this sense, if life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have? Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just? The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization. Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence. When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person. For this reason, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile.

The common good is, in a certain sense, the “social expression of the dignity recognized in every person” (Magnifica Humanitas, 59). It does not consist in the mere sum of particular interests, but rather in “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment” (Gaudium et Spes, 26). When the common good ceases to be a shared horizon, public action runs the risk of fragmenting into partial interests, incapable of safeguarding what belongs to all.

In this context, the family — the primary human reality and the natural foundation of the community — takes on particular importance. In the home, generations intertwine and a living memory is passed on, giving inner continuity to society. Where the family is upheld, the spiritual and social stability of nations is also strengthened. The family will always be the first school of humanity, where one learns, before anywhere else, the basic grammar of living together: welcoming life, caring for others, forgiving, serving and belonging.

Educational institutions also play a decisive role in this task. In them, new generations can learn to seek and love the truth, to reflect on the meaning of life and the dignity of every person. For this reason, many parents who wish for their children to learn to relate to others, to think critically, and to acquire solid values place great hope in these institutions, seeing them as valuable allies in their children’s education. This collaboration must always respect the “primary and inalienable right” of parents to “choose the kind of education and formation for their children, in a manner consistent with their moral, cultural and religious convictions” (cf. Magnifica Humanitas, 143; cf. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 18.4). (Anti-Apostolic Journey to Spain: Meeting with Members of the Spanish Parliament at the Congress of Deputies, Madrid, 8 June 2026.)

While Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV mentioned the unborn child before the members of a national legislate, something that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, for example, did not do when speaking before a special joint meeting of the Congress of the United States on Thursday, September 24, 2015, the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, and never did in front of Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro or any other pro-death world leader, Prevost/Leo did so on purely anthropocentric grounds without making any reference to obeying the Fifth Commandment nor to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law or the Natural Law.

In other words, true to his false religion, Prevost/Leo used conciliarspeak and the mania of “human dignity” to discuss the defense of human life rather than to exhort one and all to obey God and His Commandments by, for example, invoking the following words of Saint John the Evangelist:

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy. (1 John 5: 1-3)

Moreover, the common temporal good does not to advance a merely Judeo-Masonic concept of the “common good” as the true common good is advanced by civil leaders with a goal of advancing the sanctification and salvation of the subjects/citizens, which is the fundamental perquisite of the just social order, and thus place no obstacles in their pursuit of their Last End, the Beatific Vision in Paradise:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error.” Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

Pope Saint Pius X condemned as "absolutely false" the thesis that the State must be separated from the Church. Absolutely false. The conciliar "popes," including Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, have accepted as true and good that which a canonized pope, repeating the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church, which no one has any authority to contradict, condemned as absolutely false.

Are you beginning to see, possibly, that there is a problem with conciliarism in its entirety?

 Are you beginning to see, possibly, that there is no reconciling the unprecedented heresies, sacrileges, apostasies, blasphemies of novelties of conciliarism and conciliarists, with the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church?

Insofar as the currently reigning false “pope’s” contentions about education, I wish to direct your attention to how a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, Pope Pius XI, referred to the ends of education in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929:

This norm of a just freedom in things scientific, serves also as an inviolable norm of a just freedom in things didactic, or for rightly understood liberty in teaching; it should be observed therefore in whatever instruction is imparted to others. Its obligation is all the more binding in justice when there is question of instructing youth. For in this work the teacher, whether public or private, has no absolute right of his own, but only such as has been communicated to him by others. Besides every Christian child or youth has a strict right to instruction in harmony with the teaching of the Church, the pillar and ground of truth. And whoever disturbs the pupil's Faith in any way, does him grave wrong, inasmuch as he abuses the trust which children place in their teachers, and takes unfair advantage of their inexperience and of their natural craving for unrestrained liberty, at once illusory and false. 

In fact it must never be forgotten that the subject of Christian education is man whole and entire, soul united to body in unity of nature, with all his faculties natural and supernatural, such as right reason and revelation show him to be; man, therefore, fallen from his original estate, but redeemed by Christ and restored to the supernatural condition of adopted son of God, though without the preternatural privileges of bodily immortality or perfect control of appetite. There remain therefore, in human nature the effects of original sin, the chief of which are weakness of will and disorderly inclinations. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

Pope Pius XI's words are very clear: "And whoever disturbs the pupil's Faith in any way, does him grave wrong, inasmuch as he abuses the trust which children place in their teachers, and takes unfair advantage of their inexperience and of their natural craving for unrestrained liberty, at once illusory and false."

No one is free to lead himself or others into temptation. However, this is done every day in public and conciliar elementary and secondary schools, colleges, university and professional school throughout the world, including in once proudly Catholic Spain.

It should also be noted that Father Frederick William Faber mocked secular education one hundred sixty-six years ago as follows:

It is plain that some millions of sins in a day are hindered by the Precious Blood; and this is not merely a hindering of so many individual sins, but it is an immense check upon the momentum of sin. It is also a weakening of habits of sin, and a diminution of the consequences of sin. If then, the action of the Precious Blood were withdrawn from the world, sins would not only increase incalculably in number, but the tyranny of sin would be fearfully augmented, and it would spread among a greater number of people. It would wax so bold that no one would be secure from the sins of others. It would be a constant warfare, or an intolerable vigilance, to preserve property and rights. Falsehood would become so universal as to dissolve society; and the homes of domestic life would be turned into wards either of a prison or a madhouse. We cannot be in the company of an atrocious criminal without some feeling of uneasiness and fear. We should not like to be left alone with him, even if his chains were not unfastened. But without the Precious Blood, such men would abound in the world. They might even become the majority. We know of ourselves, from glimpses God has once or twice given us in life, what incredible possibilities of wickedness we have in our souls. Civilization increases these possibilities. Education multiplies and magnifies our powers of sinning. Refinement adds a fresh malignity. Men would thus become more diabolically and unmixedly bad, until at last earth would be a hell on this side of the grave. There would also doubtless be new kinds of sins and worse kinds. Education would provide the novelty, and refinement would carry it into the region of the unnatural. All highly-refined and luxurious developments of heathenism have fearfully illustrated this truth. A wicked barbarian is like a beast. His savage passions are violent but intermitting, and his necessities of sin do not appear to grow. Their circle is limited. But a highly-educated sinner, without the restraints of religion, is like a demon. His sins are less confined to himself. They involve others in their misery. They require others to be offered as it were in sacrifice to them. Moreover, education, considered simply as an intellectual cultivation, propagates sin, and makes it more universal.

The increase of sin, without the prospects which the faith lays open to us, must lead to an increase of despair, and to an increase of it upon a gigantic scale. With despair must come rage, madness, violence, tumult, and bloodshed. Yet from what quarter could we expect relief in this tremendous suffering? We should be imprisoned in our own planet. The blue sky above us would be but a dungeon-roof. The greensward beneath our feet would truly be the slab of our future tomb. Without the Precious Blood there is no intercourse between heaven and earth. Prayer would be useless. Our hapless lot would be irremediable. It has always seemed to me that it will be one of the terrible things in hell, that there are no motives for patience there. We cannot make the best of it. Why should we endure it? Endurance is an effort for a time; but this woe is eternal. Perhaps vicissitudes of agony might be a kind of field for patience. But there are no such vicissitudes. Why should we endure, then? Simply because we must; and yet in eternal things this is not a sort of necessity which supplies a reasonable ground for patience. So in this imaginary world of rampant sin there would be no motives for patience. For death would be our only seeming relief; and that is only seeming, for death is any thin but an eternal sleep. Our impatience would become frenzy; and if our constitutions were strong enough to prevent the frenzy from issuing in downright madness, it would grow into hatred of God, which is perhaps already less uncommon than we suppose.

An earth, from off which all sense of justice had perished, would indeed be the most disconsolate of homes. The antediluvian earth exhibits only a tendency that way; and the same is true of the worst forms of heathenism. The Precious Blood was always there. Unnamed, unknown, and unsuspected, the Blood of Jesus has alleviated every manifestation of evil which there has ever been just as it is alleviating at this hour the punishments of hell. What would be our own individual case on such a blighted earth as this? All our struggles to be better would be simply hopeless. There would be no reason why we should not give ourselves up to that kind of enjoyment which our corruption does substantially find in sin. The gratification of our appetites is something; and that lies on one side, while on the other side there is absolutely nothing. But we should have the worm of conscience already, even though the flames of hell might yet be some years distant. To feel that we are fools, and yet lack the strength to be wiser–is not this precisely the maddening thing in madness? Yet it would be our normal state under the reproaches of conscience, in a world where there was no Precious Blood. Whatever relics of moral good we might retain about us would add most sensibly to our wretchedness. Good people, if there were any, would be, as St. Paul speaks, of all men the most miserable; for they would be drawn away from the enjoyment of this world, or have their enjoyment of it abated by a sense of guilt and shame; and there would be no other world to aim at or to work for. To lessen the intensity of our hell without abridging its eternity would hardly be a cogent motive, when the temptations of sin and the allurements of sense are so vivid and strong.

What sort of love could there be, when we could have no respect? Even if flesh and blood made us love each other, what a separation death would be! We should commit our dead to the ground without a hope. Husband and wife would part with the fearfullest certainties of a reunion more terrible than their separation. Mothers would long to look upon their little ones in the arms of death, because their lot would be less woeful than if they lived to offend God with their developed reason and intelligent will. The sweetest feelings of our nature would become unnatural, and the most honorable ties be dishonored. Our best instincts would lead us into our worst dangers. Our hearts would have to learn to beat another way, in order to avoid the dismal consequences which our affections would bring upon ourselves and others. But it is needless to go further into these harrowing details. The world of the heart, without the Precious Blood, and with an intellectual knowledge of God, and his punishments of sin, is too fearful a picture to be drawn with minute fidelity.

But how would it fare with the poor in such a world? They are God’s chosen portion upon the earth. He chose poverty himself, when he came to us. He has left the poor in his place, and they are never to fail from the earth, but to be his representatives there until the doom. But, if it were not for the Precious Blood, would any one love them? Would any one have a devotion to them, and dedicate his life to merciful ingenuities to alleviate their lot? If the stream of almsgiving is so insufficient now, what would it be then? There would be no softening of the heart by grace; there would be no admission of of the obligation to give away in alms a definite portion of our incomes; there would be no desire to expiate sin by munificence to the needy for the love of God. The gospel makes men’s hearts large;and yet even under the gospel the fountain of almsgiving flows scantily and uncertainly. There would be no religious orders devoting themselves with skilful concentration to different acts of spiritual and corporal mercy. Vocation is a blossom to be found only in the gardens of the Precious Blood. But all this is only negative, only an absence of God. Matters would go much further in such a world as we are imagining.

Even in countries professing to be Christian, and at least in possession of the knowledge of the gospel, the poor grow to be an intolerable burden to the rich. They have to be supported by compulsory taxes; and they are in other ways a continual subject of irritated and impatient legislation. Nevertheless, it is due to the Precious Blood that the principle of supporting them is acknowledged. From what we read in heathen history–even the history of nations renowned for political wisdom, for philosophical speculation, and for literary and artistic refinement–it would not be extravagant for us to conclude that, if the circumstances of a country were such as to make the numbers of the poor dangerous to the rich, the rich would not scruple to destroy them, while it was yet in their power to do so. Just as men have had in France and England to war down bears and wolves, so would the rich war down the poor, whose clamorous misery and excited despair should threaten them in the enjoyment of their power and their possessions. The numbers of the poor would be thinned by murder, until it should be safe for their masters to reduce them into slavery. The survivors would lead the lives of convicts or of beasts. History, I repeat, shows us that this is by no means an extravagant supposition.

Such would be the condition of the world without the Precious Blood. As generations succeeded each other, original sin would go on developing those inexhaustible malignant powers which come from the almost infinite character of evil. Sin would work earth into hell. Men would become devils, devils to others and to themselves. Every thing which makes life tolerable, which counteracts any evil, which softens any harshness, which sweetens any bitterness, which causes the machinery of society to work smoothly, or which consoles any sadness–is simply due to the Precious Blood of Jesus, in heathen as well as in Christian lands. It changes the whole position of an offending creation to its Creator. It changes, if we may dare in such a matter to speak of change, the aspect of God’s immutable perfections toward his human children. It does not work merely in a spiritual sphere. It is not only prolific in temporal blessings, but it is the veritable cause of all temporal blessings whatsoever. We are all of us every moment sensibly enjoying the benignant influence of the Precious Blood. Yet who thinks of all this? Why is the goodness of God so hidden, so imperceptible, so unsuspected? Perhaps because it is so universal and so excessive, that we should hardly be free agents if it pressed sensibly upon us always. God’s goodness is at once the most public of all his attributes, and at the same time the most secret. Has life a sweeter task than to seek it, and to find it out?

Men would be far more happy, if they separated religion less violently from other things. It is both unwise and unloving to put religion into a place by itself, and mark it off with an untrue distinctness from what we call worldly and unspiritual things. Of course there is a distinction, and a most important one, between them; yet it is easy to make this distinction too rigid and to carry it too far. Thus we often attribute to nature what is only due to grace; and we put out of sight the manner and degree in which the blessed majesty of the Incarnation affects all created things. But this mistake is forever robbing us of hundreds of motives for loving Jesus. We know how unspeakably much we owe to him; but we do not see all that it is not much we owe him, but all, simply and absolutely all. We pass through times and places in life, hardly recognizing how the sweetness of Jesus is sweetening the air around us and penetrating natural things with supernatural blessings.

Hence it comes to pass that men make too much of natural goodness. They think too highly of human progress. They exaggerate the moralizing powers of civilization and refinement, which, apart from grace, are simply tyrannies of the few over the many, or of the public over the individual soul. Meanwhile they underrate the corrupting capabilities of sin, and attribute to unassisted nature many excellences which it only catches, as it were by the infection, by the proximity of grace, or by contagion, from the touch of the Church. Even in religious and ecclesiastical matters they incline to measure progress, or test vigor, by other standards rather than that of holiness. These men will consider the foregoing picture of the world without the Precious Blood as overdrawn and too darkly shaded. They do not believe in the intense malignity of man when drifted from God, and still less are they inclined to grant that cultivation and refinement only intensify still further this malignity. They admit the superior excellence of Christian charity; but they also think highly of natural philanthropy. But has this philanthropy ever been found where the indirect influences of the true religion, whether Jewish or Christian, had not penetrated? We may admire the Greeks for their exquisite refinement, and the Romans for the wisdom of their political moderation. Yet look at the position of children, of servants, of slaves, and of the poor, under both these systems, and see if, while extreme refinement only pushed sin to an extremity of foulness, the same exquisite culture did not also lead to a social cruelty and an individual selfishness which made life unbearable to the masses. Philanthropy is but a theft from the gospel, or rather a shadow, not a substance, and as unhelpful as shadows are want to be. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, published originally in England in 1860, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 53-59.)

Yes, much too much is made of natural goodness and human progress in the Judeo-Masonic and Pelagian world in which we live, especially right here in the United States of America. However, such "goodness" and "progress" are not the measure of personal sanctity or savlation, and they are not the foundation of social order nor of world peace. Our educational system does indeed multiply and magnify our powers for sinning, something that was discussed in early 2019 in Not With My Money (Not That I Have Any). The Judeo-Masonic farce of naturalism can never provide anything other than division, chaos, disarray and, ultimately, the destruction of nations and wars among them. We must, therefore, make good use of the Laver of Redemption, the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in our own lives lest we be cast adrift into the errors that daily sweep away so many "good" people into the surging waters of turbulence caused by the promotion of sin under the cover of the civil law and as a matter of "civil rights."

As Pope Leo XIII noted in his final paragraph of Tametsi Prospicientibus Futura, November 1, 1900:

The world has heard enough of the so-called “rights of man.” Let it hear something of the rights of God. That the time is suitable is proved by the very general revival of religious feeling already referred to, and especially that devotion towards Our Saviour of which there are so many indications, and which, please God, we shall hand on to the New Century as a pledge of happier times to come. But as this consummation cannot be hoped for except by the aid of divine grace, let us strive in prayer, with united heart and voice, to incline Almighty God unto mercy, that He would not suffer those to perish whom He had redeemed by His Blood. May He look down in mercy upon this world, which has indeed sinned much, but which has also suffered much in expiation! And, embracing in His loving-kindness all races and classes of mankind, may He remember His own words: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself” (John xii., 32).

For all of their occasional references to the defense of human life, the conciliar revolutionaries have been and continue to be focused on “man” and not on the fact that the human being cannot be understood without clearly teaching on Special Creation, the Fall from Grace, and Our Lord’s Incarnation, Nativity, Hidden Years, Public Life and Ministry, and His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven prior to the missionary work of His true Church on Pentecost Sunday after the descent of God the Holy Ghost tongues of flame upon the Apostles and our dear Blessed Mother.

Everything that the conciliarists say about the Holy Faith is filtered through the lens of Modernism’s false presuppositions that they have reiterated ad infinitum and ad nauseam as though they are trying to convince themselves that there is anything opaque, uncertain, ambiguous, or transitory about the Catholic Faith in general and its primacy over the temporal realm in all that pertains to the good of souls, which, as noted earlier, depends a just order within nations and genuine peace, the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ, among them.

The lesson in all of this is as follows: Beware of the doublemindedness of Modernists as they are capable of speaking as Catholics one day and then as Modernists the next as a fundamental building block of Modernism is a denial of Aristotle’s Principle of Noncontradiction. 

As Saint Robert Bellarmine suummarized so very clearly:

There are some person, dear listeners, who hold almost everything with a firm faith that Catholics hold: but there is one thing or another, which they have not yet been able to accept completely, such as that purgatory exists, that sacred images are to be venerated, that the sovereign Pontiff is the vicar of Christ and the head of the whole Church. And since there are many things that they believe, and only one or two things that they do not believe and consider it is not important if taken together with the other articles, they think they are situated very well on the foundation of Christ. What is the difference, they say, even if I err in that one thing, which I still cannot believe, and at the judgment will the Lord be concerned about that? And will he not be mindful of the many difficult things I believe? Indeed, this is the way in which they flatter themselves; I serious rebuke them and say that they have fallen from grace and have laid their foundation on sand, and will have no part with Christ. Either the faith is had completely, or it is not had at all. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. I ask you (to clarify the matter with a crass example), when you order a pair of shoes from a shoemaker, if when they are finally made you find they are an inch shorter than your feet, do you not put them on and wear them? Your will say “I cannot wear them” But they are only an inch too short, so why can't you wear them, since they are just a little bit short of the right measurement? As, therefore, your shoes are either the right size for your feet or they have no value at all, so also the faith is either integral, or it is not the faith. Therefore no one should deceive himself. If we want to build a house which cannot be moved by wind or rain, we must lay the foundation of both rocks, that is, on Christ and Peter. (Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part II: Sermons 30-55, Including the Four Last Things and the Annunciation., translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., and published in 2017 by Keep the Faith, Inc., Ramsey, New Jersey, pp. 152-154.)

Any questions?

On this Octave Day of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi and the Commemoration of Saint Barnabas, the companion of Saint Paul the Apostle, may Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament inspire within our hearts a fervent love of her Divine Son's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and a deep commitment to Eucharisitic piety, if only by sending our Guardian Angel to adore Our Blessed and Saviour Jesus Christ if His Real Presence is not to be found anywhere near where we live, and help us to remember that her Divine Son's Most Sacred Heart, Whose feast we celebrate tomorrow, Friday, June 12, 2026, forever beats with fervent love for each one of us personally in the August Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, which the pinnacle of true Charity, that of Christ the King for our our sanctification and salvation as members of His true Church.

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary and the Most Blessed Sacrament, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint Barnabas, pray for us.

Appendix A

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., On the Octave Day of Corpus Christi

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

The bright Octave, consecrated to the glory of the Blessed Sacrament, closes today; and although we began the subject three days before the Feast itself, we have been able to do little more than slightly touch upon the sublime subject proposed for our consideration and love by the Church. The memorial left us by our Lord of all his wondrous mercies (Psalm 110:4) far exceeds the measure of our poor thoughts; the extremity of the infinite love, which God bears to his own (John 13:1) creatures, is far beyond any possibility of ours to make it a return such as it would deserve, and very far beyond the capabilities of human words to express.

Eternal Wisdom was, even from his Father’s bosom, betrothed to human nature; he came down into this world, which sin had marred, and there he found man, who had become the slave of sin; (Hebrews 2:14-15) he assumed this nature; he became man; he was thus able to make a Sacrifice, which gives infinite glory, and full satisfaction, to God; and, by that same, he perfected his union with his creature, by means, that is, of a divine banquet, at which, as food and drink, he himself is served, for he is the divine Victim, (Proverbs 9:2) immolated on the Cross, and at our Altars.

O Man! child of Adam, that wast formed of earthy slime, (Genesis 2:7) what art thou, that thou shouldst be remembered in the court of heaven? (Psalm 8:5) Thou desired one of the everlasting hills, (Genesis 49:26) — (for we may apply this name even to thee) — what hast thou done, that thou shouldst thus be glorified? (Job 7:17) Yet, doubt it not, thou hast had all these favors. “Let not my few weak words stagger thee,” cries out St. Cyril, the brave defender at Ephesus, of the sacred nuptials, of which the Eucharist is, what the Fathers call, (Tuesday within the Octave) the glorious extension, — “heed not my unworthiness, but listen to the voice, respect the authority of them that have gone before us, and have preached these truths. They were not men of the common sort, they were not men undeserving of notice, who went about, like hired criers, to proclaim these things on the high-roads; no, they were such men as the great Solomon, who was sent as the herald of the King of kings; he sat on his high throne, and proclaimed the mysteries of the Most High; he was clad in scarlet robes, and wore a diadem on his brow, and he was the one to publish the mandate of the God who makes and unmakes kings.” (Homilies, div. x. in Myst cæn)

Christians! ye people of kings! (Matthew 25:34) who are to have crowns and thrones yonder in heaven, (Apocalypse 5:9-10) — it is to you this Solomon speaks. Your dignity is great. Listen to this herald of God; learn whence comes your greatness, and live up to it. Hearken, ye kings, and understand I Give ear, ye kings! To you are these my words. If ye love your thrones and your scepters, love Wisdom, that ye may reign forever. (Wisdom 6:2, 3, 10, 22) I preferred this Wisdom before kingdoms and thrones; I loved him above all treasures, and health, and beauty, and chose to have him instead of light. (Wisdom 7:8-10) What this Wisdom is, and what his origin, I will declare, and I will not hide from you the mysteries of God; but will seek Wisdom out from the beginning of his birth, and bring the knowledge of him to light, and will not pass over the truth. (Wisdom 6:24) I have learned him without guile, and I communicate him to you without envy. (Wisdom 7:13) Receive, therefore, instruction by my words, and it shall be profitable unto you.

Would to God, that we had been able to tell the wonderful mystery we have been celebrating! Divine Wisdom himself has been pressing us, during all these days, to study the excellencies of that sacred Bread, which yields delight to the kings, his guests! (Genesis 49:20) The Church has kept close to the throne of her Jesus, that cloud in which he dwells out of love for us. (Ecclesiasticus 24:7) She is full of love for him; he has given her unity by the Sacrament of union; and she, like a strong compact city, summons her tribes of Israel, (Psalm 121:3-4) the holy nation, the people of the redeemed, the chosen race of the priests and kings, (1 Peter 2:9)  to come together again on this octave-day, that they may testify their faith, and sing their love, and be grateful for the peace which, by the holy Eucharist, is secured to them, and for the abundance of grace and blessing it gives to us her children. (Psalm 121:4-8) These days of universal joy and festivity around the holy Host were revealed, by the Holy Ghost, to the son of Sirach; and the vision made him exclaim: Wisdom shall praise her own self, and shall be honored in God, and shall glory in the midst of her people, and shall open her mouth in the churches of the Most High, and shall glorify herself in the sight of his power. And in the midst of her own people, she shall be exalted, and shall be admired in the holy assembly. And in the multitude of the elect, she shall have praise, and among the blessed (of the Father) she shall be blessed. (Ecclesiasticus 24:1-4)

Blessed the man, continues the inspired writer, still speaking in the future, that shall dwell in Wisdom! Blessed the man that considereth her ways in his heart, and hath understanding in her secrets, who goeth after her as one that traceth, and prepareth for her snares of love; (Juxta græc.) who looketh in at her windows, and hearkeneth at her door! Blessed is he that lodgeth near her house, and, fastening a pin in her walls, shall set up his tent nigh unto her, where good things shall rest in his lodging forever. He shall set his children under her shelter, and shall lodge under her branches. He shall be protected, under her covering, from the heat, and shall rest in her glory. (Ecclesiasticus 14:22-27)

O House of God, House of the feasting of kings (Psalm 41:5) filled with the fragrance of sweetest incense! (Ecclesiasticus 24:20-21) better is one day in thy precincts, than a thousand elsewhere. It is a joy to my soul to think of days spent there! (Psalm 83:2, 11) The poor bird that once was lonely, and sat moaning on a roof that could never give her rest, (Psalm 101:8) here, in the House of God, finds all she wants. The turtledove, having found, at the Altar of her Lord, a nest for her young ones, (Psalm 83:4) has no further solicitude. In the secret of that little cloud, far from the conflicts and disturbances of the world, and where there is no contradiction of tongues, — there, from early dawn, eternal Wisdom is pouring out upon souls the multitude of his light and sweetness; (Psalm 30:20-21) there, each of the Church’s hours, choirs will be singing psalms and canticles of praise and joy, around the tabernacle, (Psalm 26:6) wherein resides the Lamb who, though slain, is ever living, (Apocalypse 5:6) beautiful on his throne of love, the God of gods in our Sion. (Psalm 83:8) O ye children of men, Sons of the Most High, the Psalmist may well give you the name of gods, (Psalm 83:8) for you are so closely united with God; you receive Him into such intimacy with your own selves; you feast upon the Lamb, and divine Wisdom is within you by that communion. It is by the same Lamb, that he abides among you!

Truly, he abides among us; our earth has received the mystery of the Marriage-Feast, of the divine Espousals with human nature, and she ever possesses the Lord her God, dwelling with her in the Eucharist. O thou gladness of morning! (Psalm 29:6) heavenly wine that bringeth forth virgins! (Zachariah 9:17) the happy moments wherein the beauty of that Jesus of ours, whose full vision is the joy of the Angels, gives Itself, under the sacramental veil, to our souls, — O happy moments! you leave behind you something more than a joyous recollection. The Altar of Sacrifice, and the House of the great Banquet, — they both continue as the throne ever occupied by our King; they are the earthly abode of that Wisdom, who, though he is seated at the right hand of the Father, in the brightness of the Saints, and is loved by the Lord of all things, (Wisdom 8:3, Psalm 109:3) yet has he not changed towards us poor children of men; he still delights to be with us, and keep up his loved union with us; and, as he tells us he did at the beginning, so he does still, he loves this world of ours, and, to use his own word, he still plays with it. (Proverbs 8:31) On the throne of his tabernacle, he, beautiful Wisdom, receives the adorations of them that rule this world, for it is from him they have their crowns and scepters; and, when they have wisdom, it is from Him they have it, and they asked him for it, on bended knees. (Proverbs 8:14-16) On that same throne, he hears and grants the prayer of those little ones, little by humility and simplicity of heart, whom he so sweetly presses to go to him; (Proverbs 9:4, Mark 10:14) they are attracted to him by his divine loveliness and riches; (Ecclesiasticus 24:26) and they go to him, that he may teach them how to love him, and fill their treasures to the brim. (Proverbs 8:21)

Glory be to the Lamb, whose Sacrifice has given us this wondrous Presence in the Blessed Sacrament! To him be power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and benediction, for ever and ever! (Apocalypse 5:12) By his lovely light, (Apocalypse 21:23) let us, as a close to this day and the octave, respectfully contemplate what this ineffable permanence is, which thus secures to us, and in its fullness, and to the end of time, the great Mystery of Faith.

How different is the divine Lamb of the true Passover, from that ancient one of the Jewish people, which we now so well understand! (Paschal Time, vol. I) In prescribing the rites to be observed in the sacrifice of the figurative Paschal Lamb, and which was to be eaten but once a year, Moses laid down this strict injunction: “Neither shall there remain anything of it until morning,” (Exodus 12:10) nothing was to be left, all was to be consumed! Let us listen, now, to an Apostle of the New Law: it is Andrew, brother to Peter; he is speaking to a Roman Proconsul, and, through him, to all the Gentiles: “Every day, I offer up to the almighty God, who is one and true, not the flesh of oxen, nor the blood of goats, but the spotless Lamb, upon the Altar; of whose Flesh the whole multitude of the people eat; and the Lamb that is sacrificed, remains whole and living.” (Pass. S. Andr. ap. Lipom.)

“How can that be?” asks the Proconsul. “Become a disciple of mine, and thou shalt learn,” replies Andrew. But, that could not be: the representative of the pagan world was officially appointed to persecute the crucified Jesus in his members; and, as to the sublime dogma he had just heard, and which was the very basis of the religion proscribed by the state, he had but one way of dealing with it and its preacher, — laugh at it, and hang Andrew on the cross. The Apostle thus sealed his testimony by his death, leaving to the Holy Ghost, who had inspired him with the words he had spoken, (Matthew 10:20) the future victory which that teaching was to win. His brother Apostles, who had been his fellow-guests at the Last Supper, also laid down their lives for Jesus and his doctrines; and, by that sacrifice of themselves, they made themselves food to the same dear Lord. So did Andrew. He followed the counsel of the Wise Man: When thou shalt sit to eat with a Prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face, and lay this to thy heart, and know that it behooveth thee to give a like feasting to the Prince. (Proverbs 23:1, 2 Juxta græc) Having, therefore, been fed with Jesus’ Cross in the banquet of his Body at the Last Supper, as St. Augustine expresses it, (In Psalm c) Andrew made a right noble return.

And so was it with the other Martyrs, who came after him: — the joy they showed, in the midst of their tortures, kept up the proof of the power that exists in the precious Wine and heavenly Bread, which can thus gladden man’s heart and make it brave. (Psalm 103:15) The time would come, when the demonstration of the Mystery of Faith, so sublimely expressed by the Apostle St. Andrew, would convince the world; not, indeed, by the force of argument, or by the clever sequel of learned deductions, — but by the world itself becoming transformed, from paganism to Christianity. That transformation was an impossibility, as far as the world’s own misery and power were concerned; and yet, it was an undeniable fact; and it was the result of an irresistible influence; and the influence was that of the divine leaven, which in the language of the Gospel, was put into the whole measure of flour at the Last Supper. From south to north, from east to west, everywhere throughout the globe, the children of the Church now sing these words, which are but St. Andrew’s expression that has triumphed over the world, won its faith, and is set to rhythm and music: “Christ’s Flesh is food, and his Blood is drink; yet is he whole, under each species. He is not cut by the receiver, nor broken, nor divided: “he is taken whole. He is received by one, he is received by a thousand; the one receives as much as all; nor is He consumed, who is received. And when the Sacrament is broken, waver not! but remember, that there is as much under each fragment, as is hid under the whole. Of the substance that is there, there is no division; it is but the sign that is broken; and He who is the Signified, is not thereby diminished, either as to state or stature.” (Sequence Lauda Sion)

The Church’s doctrine is this: that “under each species, and under each part of each species, there is contained, truly, really, and substantially, the Body, and the Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, therefore, the whole Christ.” (Conc. Trid., Session 13) Of themselves, it is true, the words of Consecration in the Sacrifice, do but produce what they signify; and, therefore, exclusively and isolatedly, under the twofold species, produce the Body and the Blood; but our Risen Lord, who liveth now forever, remains indivisible. As the Apostle teaches us, Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more; for; in that he died to sin (that is, because of our sin), he died once; but, in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. (Romans 6:9-10) Therefore, wheresoever, in virtue of the words of consecration, there is the most holy Body or the Blood of our Redeemer, there, also, by an essential and necessary concomitance, is there the whole entire sacred Humanity, united with the Word.

And here, for the sake of greater precision, we are going to adopt the scholastic phraseology. And firstly, the change of bread into the Body, and of wine into the Blood, is one of substance into substance; but in this miraculous change, very appropriately, on that account, called trans-substantiation, the accidents or modes of the two terms of the change are, in no ways, altered or destroyed. So that, being deprived of their natural subject, or support, the species, or appearances, of bread and wine are immediately sustained by God’s omnipotence, and they produce and receive the same impressions as they would do if they were joined to their own proper substances. They are the sacramental sign; and although they do not inform the Body of Christ, that is, do not give It their own qualities or properties, yet they determine and maintain Its presence, so long as these species are not essentially modified. As regards the Body of our Lord,—which, in Its own true substance, is substituted for the substance alone of bread and wine,—It is withdrawn, by the sacred formula, from those mysterious laws of extension, which are so far from being thoroughly understood by human science; It is whole under the whole species, and whole under each sensible portion of the species, and, in this, It resembles spiritual substances, such as, for instance, the soul of man, which is whole in his whole body, and whole in each member of the same. Such, then, is the mystery of the sacramental state: while present to us under the dimensions of the host, and not beyond them, by reason of his substance, being independent of our known laws of extension, Christ our Lord, abides in himself precisely what he is in heaven. As St. Thomas of Aquin expresses it: “The Body of Christ, in the Sacrament, retains all Its accidents, as a necessary consequence; and its several parts are just as they are in his sacred Body, although they are not subject to the conditions of external space.” (Summa Part III, Q. 76, Art. 4, Sent. lib. iv. dist. 10, art. 2)

The very notion of Sacrifice required this passive appearance; in the same way as the idea of a banquet, in which he is received, determined what were to be the peculiar nature of the sacramental elements selected by our divine Lord. Of course, when we behold the sacred Host, we must banish every such thought as bondage, or actual suffering, or laborious virtues, on the part of the divine Guest who dwells under the sacred species: under this external passiveness or apparent death, there abound life, and love, and beauty of the Lamb, who has vanquished death,—of Jesus, that is,—of Him who is the Immortal King of ages.

He resides under the white Host, with all his power and brightness, the most beautiful of the children of men; (Psalm 44:3) he has all those admirable proportions, and all the perfect finish of those divine members, which were formed from the flesh of the most beautiful of the daughters of Adam, and the purest of Virgins. Let us venerate, with all the respect we are capable of, those feet, which were watered by the tears of the repentant Magdalene, and dried with her hair, (Luke 7:37-38) and embalmed with the sweetest ointment, beforehand, as our Jesus emphasizes her act, when he praised it; (Mark 14:8) those feet of our merciful Redeemer, more beautiful than the feet of them who come to tell us of his having come among us; (Isaiah 52:7) they are bright, beyond the brightness of fine brass when in a burning furnace. (Apocalypse 1:15) Let us send our reverential kisses, beyond the veil, to those hands, which are spotless, and consecrated for the office of High Priest; (Leviticus 21:10) those hands, which worked at the wood in Joseph’s shop; those hands, which scattered blessings and miracles throughout the land of Israel; they are there, under that Host, just as the Bride of the Canticle saw and described them, bright as gold, formed to the model of perfection, and full of something extremely precious, which she called hyacinths, (Song of Solomon 5:14), and which perhaps signify those wounds of which the prophet speaks, saying, that horns are in his hands, and there is his strength hid. (Habakkuk 3:4) Would that we might look beneath the little cloud which hides from us that divine head, the admiration of the Angels, — that face, once disfigured, and buffeted, and covered all over with reproaches, out of love for us, (Lamentations 3:30) but now resplendant as the sun when he shineth in his power! (Apocalypse 1:16) O mouth of our Jesus, thou instrument of the Word, whose voice is as the sound of many waters, (Apocalypse 1:15) and whose breathing is death to the wicked! (Isaiah 11:4) O lips, which our Scriptures tell us, are as lilies dropping choice myrrh! (Canticles 5:13) And you, eyes, which shed tears over Lazarus, (John 11:35) and now are lighting up with your brightness (Apocalypse 1:14) the abode of the saints! Oh! that we might see all, see thee thyself, Jesus, beneath the mystery and the veil! But, no! the mystery and veil may not be removed; and surer are we, than if our eyes were the witnesses, that thou, Beloved of our hearts! that thou art behind our wall, looking at us through the lattices; (Canticles 2:9) and this is enough to make us adore thee. Verily, the sweetest test to which thou couldst put our love, was that we should have faith in this mystery of the adorable Sacrament!

O precious Blood, thou price of our ransom, shed profusely on this earth, but now again within the Sacred veins of Jesus! thou art now, as during his years here below, diffusing thy life-giving qualities to his divine members, under the action of that sacred Heart, which we are so solemnly to honor tomorrow! Most holy soul of Jesus, present in the Sacrament as form substantial (Council of Vienna) of that most perfect Body, which, through thee, is the ever-living Body of the Man-God, — thou possessest within thee all the treasures of eternal Wisdom. (Colossians 2:3) thou hadst the office entrusted to thee, of putting into a varied and sensible language, the ineffable beauty of that Wisdom of the Father, who was taken with love for the children of men, and desired. by a manifestation which they could understand, to secure their love to himself ! Every word, every step, of Jesus, every mystery of his public or hidden life, was a gradual revelation, to us men, of that divine brightness. Truly, as we have it in the Gospel, this Wisdom, like the grace that was within him, advanced in his manifestation to the creatures, whose love he had come down from heaven to win. (Luke 2:52) When, at length, he had achieved all his work, — given us his teachings, and examples, and mysteries, those marvelous manifestations of his own infinite perfections, he gave them perpetuity, that so all ages to come might possess them and benefit by them; he fixed them, so to say, in the Sacrament of love, that abiding source of grace and light to men, that living Memorial, wherein divine love is ever ready to bestow upon us the graces of the wonderful works lie has wrought by his Incarnation. “The Flesh, the Blood of Christ, is the Word made manifest,” says St. Basil; ” it is Wisdom made visible by the Incarnation and by all that mystery of his life in the flesh, whereby he unfolds to us, all moral perfection, and all the beautiful, both natural and divine. It is that which is the food of our soul, and which is preparing her, even in this world, for the contemplation of the divine realities.” (St Basil, Epistle 8) (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Octave Day of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.)

Appendix B

Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., on Saint Barnabas

St. Barnabas, upon whom the Holy Church confers the title of Apostle, was born of the tribe of Levi, in the island of Cyprus. His parents, who were very wealthy, sent him to Jerusalem, that he might there be well instructed in the laws, by the celebrated Gamaliel, who had also been the teacher of Saul, afterwards St. Paul. From his youth he endeavored to lead an honest, quiet life; and avoiding idleness and frivolities, he found time and opportunity to acquire a thorough knowledge of the Mosaic law. As at that time all Jerusalem was full of astonishment at our Lord Jesus Christ, who had manifested so incontestibly His divine mission, it was not difficult for Barnabas to recognize in Him the true Messiah, who had been so frequently promised and predicted. Hence he went to Jesus, attended his sermons assiduously, and left him no more. The rich heritage bequeathed to him by his parents he sold, and gave the money to the poor. One acre of land he retained to meet his own necessities, but this he also sold after the ascension of our Lord, and laid the value received for it at the feet of the Apostles, as is related in the Acts, with the addition that he had formerly been called Joseph, but that the Apostles changed his name to Barnabas, which signifies, "Son of consolation."

So long as Christ lived, Barnabas was one of the seventy-two disciples who accompanied the Lord everywhere, and listened with avidity to His teaching. After the coming of the Holy Ghost, the Apostles made use of him as a zealous co-laborer in preaching the Gospel. When St. Paul, after his miraculous conversion, came to Jerusalem and desired to join the disciples of our Lord, they refused to trust him, fearing that he was not truly a confessor of Christ, as he had so cruelly persecuted the followers of the Gospel. St. Barnabas, who as said above, had studied the law under the same teacher with Paul, went therefore to him, to learn more of him. Being soon entirely convinced of his conversion, he brought him to the Apostles and acquainted them with the event which had thus changed Paul; whereupon they were greatly rejoiced, and no longer hesitated to give him their confidence. After this, the Apostles sent Barnabas, to Antioch, there to plant the seeds of the Christian faith. He found many who had been converted to Christ. These he exhorted to remain constant to the true Church, while he persuaded others, who had obstinately remained in Judaism, to become followers of the Saviour. From Antioch he went to Tarsus to Paul. Accompanied by him he returned to Antioch, where both remained a year preaching the doctrine of Christ with such success, that those who became converted there, were the first who were called Christians, in order to confess openly to what faith they belonged.

As zealous as these new Christians were in confessing the teachings of Christ, so were they charitable to the needy at Jerusalem, to whom they sent liberal contributions by Paul and Barnabas. Both Apostles returned from Jerusalem again to Antioch, and there, by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they were sent by the Apostles to convert the Gentiles. Hence they repaired with another disciple of the Lord, named John Mark, to the City of Seleucia, and thence to the Island of Cyprus, where, on the Sabbath days, they preached in many cities the word of the Lord. Many Jews became converted; many, however, remained obdurate, and these calumniated the Apostles, who therefore said to them: "To you we had first to preach the word of God, but as you will not receive it, and deem yourselves not worthy of everlasting life, we shall turn to the heathens." They kept their word, and wandering through many heathen cities and places, they preached the Gospel and converted many. They had, however, much to suffer everywhere, as the Jews instigated the heathens against them.

After some years, both returned to Antioch, and as they found there some disturbance among the Christians on account of the belief which several of them entertained that they ought to keep the old laws, particularly that of circumcision, Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to receive a decisive answer from the Apostles. Returning, they acquainted the Christians with what had been told to them and exhorted, them to live accordingly. It was in this city that St. Barnabas separated from St. Paul, and chose as his travelling companion, Mark, whom St. Paul would not keep longer with him because he had left him and Barnabas in Pamphilia. St. Paul took one of the most zealous disciples, named Silas, and went with him to Syria and Cilicia, while St. Barnabas, accompanied by Mark, left for Cyprus, and thence went to Rome. He went also to Milan, where he was the first to preach Christianity. There he remained seven years, and governed the newly-founded Church as its first bishop. After this he consecrated one of his disciples as his successor, and repaired to Bergamo and Brixen, where an altar is still shown, at which he said Holy Mass.

At length he returned to Cyprus and gloriously ended his earthly career, as the Jews, who had come thither from Syria, had made a conspiracy to kill him. God revealed to him his approaching death, and the Saint, rejoicing at the tidings, assembled all the Christians, and after having said Mass, he gave them his last instructions, in which he encouraged them to constancy in the Christian faith, and exhorted them to lead an edifying life. After this he went fearlessly into the Synagogue and clearly proved to the Jews that Christ was the promised Messiah. Not able to refute his words, they attacked him with fearful rage, dragged him out of the Synagogue and stoned him. His holy body was buried by his disciple Mark. At his tomb God wrought at first numberless miracles on the possessed and sick, but as it happened that, on account of the persecutions which the Christians had to endure, it became forgotten and neglected, the Saint himself appeared to a bishop in Antioch, and made known where his remains lay buried. The holy body was then raised, with great solemnity. Upon the breast of the Saint was lying the Gospel of St. Matthew, which he had copied with his own hand. Particularly noteworthy in the life of this Saint is the fact, that during many years, he was the travelling companion of St. Paul, and had a share in all the labors, troubles and dangers which this holy Apostle suffered; also, that in Holy Writ he is called, "a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith " (Acts ii.).

Practical Considerations

St. Barnabas rejoiced when God revealed his approaching death to him. The same sentiments are found in the lives of many other Saints. They desired death, sighed after it, and when they saw it coming, they manifested great joy. There are also in our day persons who long for death, who desire it. But the cause of this is generally anger, impatience, trouble about work, long sickness, or great affliction. But these wishes, in such cases, are neither agreeable to God nor useful or wholesome to men; but are on the contrary detrimental. Quite different were the reasons for which the Saints longed for death and rejoiced at it; first, because God made men subject to the law of death, as a just punishment, to which we ought willingly to submit; secondly, because death frees man from numberless miseries of this life and brings him, if he is worthy, to his last end; thirdly, because death saves him from many dangers and occasions of sin, which might cause him to die in God's disgrace and consequently go into eternal punishment; fourthly, because only by death can we go into heaven, see God, and love and glorify Him much more perfectly than we are able to do in this world. Consider all this thoroughly, and if it does not lead you to long for death after the examples of the Saints, it will at least help you to conquer your inordinate fear of death and make you willing to depart when your hour has come.

St. Barnabas was buried, according to his desire, with the Gospel lying on his breast, as a sign that he had loved and revered the precepts which it contains. Whoever loves and reveres Christ with his whole heart, must also love and revere the Gospel, because it contains the life and teachings of Christ. Whoever loves and reveres the Gospel must love to read it, or hear it read and expounded, as is done in sermons. "We listen to the Gospel in the same manner," says St. Augustine, "as if Christ stood before us and spoke to us." The benefit that is derived from reading or hearing the word of God, St. Chrysostom explains in the following words: "Satan cannot easily find entrance into those who frequently read or hear the Gospel explained." How is it with you? Do you also duly love and esteem the Gospel and the teachings of Christ which it contains? Why do you not read it more frequently? Why are you not present more assiduously at the expounding of it? Do you expect to derive more benefit from the reading of those frivolous, unwholesome or sinful books which are so often seen in your hands? Do you think Satan will not easily find entrance into your heart on account of these books? Just the contrary: for, by reading licentious books, we open our heart to Satan and invite him to take possession of it, or at least to disturb it with all manner of dangerous thoughts. Acknowledge your fault while it is time. Keep the Gospel carefully and thoroughly, go frequently to hear explanations of it, as well as sermons, and then endeavor to form your life according to its precepts. "Our lives must harmonize with the Gospel," says St. Chrysostom. Read, therefore, the Gospel, listen to the explanation of it, and consider what is commanded you by Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lawgiver. In this manner alone will the Gospel benefit you; not otherwise.