Today is Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of Holy Mother Church, the upon which the first pope, Saint Peter, who was vivified as the Vivifier Himself, God the Holy Ghost, descended upon him and Our Lady and the other Apostles (and the rest of the disciples) gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem as they completed their Novena to God the Holy Ghost ten days after Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's glorious Ascension to His Father's right hand on Ascension Thursday. Saint Peter wasted no time in doing something that is forbidden, at least in a de facto sense, in the counterfeit church of conciliarism: he preached to the Jews about the necessity of their converting to the true Faith.
The missionary work of the Church to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of all men and all nations to the her maternal bosom, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there is no true social order, brought us glorious missionaries who were willing to embrace many sacrifices, including martyrdom itself, to spread the Faith of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, so that men and all nations would be able to order themselves rightly according to the Deposit of Faith that He has entrusted exclusively to Holy Mother Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication and by means of a fervent cooperation with the graces won for us by the shedding of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of all Graces. The work of conversion does not end when one is Baptized or Confirmed.
The work of conversion away from our sinful selves to become more conformed to the Cross of the Divine Redeemer and the merciful designs of His Most Sacred Heart for us is one that is constant. Every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they must be to that same Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, must burn with fire for the love of God as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church and as we seek to grow in holiness and to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world. It is useless for us to be converted in the Baptismal font unless we are willing to let God the Holy Ghost help to convert us every day to cooperate more fully with His Seven Gifts and Twelve Fruits. Saint Paul the Apostle explained that the spiritual man, the one who is filled with Sanctifying Grace, cannot be understood by the sensual or worldly man:
For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God. Which things also we speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom; but in the doctrine of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined. But the spiritual man judgeth all things; and he himself is judged of no man. (2 Cor. 2: 11-15)
We must keep this in mind when our relatives and friends and associates do not understand how we can refuse to keep our silence when a putative "pontiff" calls a mosque as a "jewel" or as a "sacred" place or as he prays as a Jew without mentioning the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer (doing voluntarily what the leaders of Sanhedrin tried to force the Apostles to do, that is, to mention the "name of that man no more") and has he praises the nonexistent ability of false religions to help build the "better world."
We cannot care about what others think of us. We must say and do only those things that are pleasing God, never fearing to raise our voices to defend His greater honor and glory and majesty when these are offended by one claiming to speak for the Catholic Church on earth. The Mystical Bride of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Holy Mother Church, is as spotless and as immaculate as Our Blessed Mother herself.
The Catholic Church did not give us "hootenanny" liturgies before the aftermath of the "Second" Vatican Council. She did not give us "inter-religious dialogue" and "inter-religious" prayer services. She gave us liturgies that came from God the Holy Ghost, not travesties that reaffirm people in the spirit of the world.
The Catholic Church can only give us clarity of doctrine, not ambiguity and complexity that took one "clarification" after another to attempt to make "clear." Holy Mother Church has always mirrored Our Blessed Mother's hatred of heresy and error, which was part of the meditation written by the late Father Frederick Faber on the Sixth Dolor of Our Lady:
In the judgment of the world, and of worldly Christians, this hatred of heresy is exaggerated, bitter, contrary to moderation, indiscreet, unreasonable, aiming at too much, bigoted, intolerant, narrow, stupid, and immoral. What can we say to defend it? Nothing which they can understand. We had, therefore, better hold our peace. If we understand God, and He understands us, it is not so very hard to go through life suspected, misunderstood and unpopular. The mild self-opinionatedness of the gentle, undiscerning good will also take the world's view and condemn us; for there is a meek-loving positiveness about timid goodness which is far from God, and the instincts of whose charity is more toward those who are less for God, while its timidity is searing enough for harsh judgment. There are conversions where three-quarters of the heart stop outside the Church and only a quarter enters, and heresy can only be hated by an undivided heart. But if it is hard, it has to be borne. A man can hardly have the full use of his senses who is bent on proving to the world, God's enemy, that a thorough-going Catholic hatred of heresy is a right frame of mind. We might as well force a blind man to judge a question of color. Divine love inspheres in us a different circle of life, motive, and principle, which is not only not that of the world, but in direct enmity with it. From a worldly point of view, the craters in the moon are more explicable things than we Christians with our supernatural instinct.
We must therefore permit God the Holy Ghost to come into our souls with His bright burning flames at every moment of our lives so that we will filled with love of God and hatred of our own sins as we seek to cooperate with the graces He sends us through the loving hands of His Spouse, Our Lady, making sure to honor His Spouse as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. May this be our prayer this day and every day our own lives:
Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love.
V. Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created.
R. And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray. O God, Who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Ghost, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise, and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
A blessed Pentecost Sunday and Octave to you all!
Our Lady of the Cenacle, pray for us.
The Holy Apostles, pray for us.
Saint Brendan the Navigator (whose feast, that is observed on this date in some locations, but suppressed this year), pray for us.
See Father Francis Weninger, S.J.: Three Sermons for Pentecost Sunday for inspiration of this great feast, which is the climax of Paschaltide.
My next original commentary, which is about a possible "Third Vatican Council," will be published late this evening or around this time tomorrow morning, Whit Monday.
