We Cannot Live by the Siren Call of Bread and Circuses in Lent

Bread and circuses.

Dog and pony shows.

Super Bowls.

Spring Training.

March Madness.

A senile president who has always been careless with classified information, which was probably used in his crime family’s massive influence peddling scheme.

Endless court cases against a former president.

A district attorney who is need of taking an English as a Second Language course.

Another district attorney who winks at violent crime while stretching the law to crush a political adversary.

A state attorney general who vowed to “get Trump” convinces a snarky judge to find the former president “liable” for “fraud” even though no one claimed to be defrauded.

A former president who has no concept that all that is being thrown against him now is nothing other than God’s just chastisement upon him for his many sins, especially those of blasphemy and impure speech.

Bread and circuses.

Dog and pony shows.

Spring Training.

March Madness.

These diversions are merely efforts devised in hell by the adversary himself to keep people distracted from focusing on First and Last Things during this penitential season of Lent.

Although distractions of one kind or another are omnipresent in our lives, we must remember that the world as we know it is passing away.

The Fulton County, Georgia, and the New York County, New York, distractions alluded to above involve salacious details of the sort that no serious Catholic should want to have pollute the portals to his immortal soul that are his eyes and ears:

Be ye therefore followers of God, as most dear children;  2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness.  3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints  4 Or obscenity, or foolish talking, or scurrility, which is to no purpose; but rather giving of thanks.  5 For know you this and understand, that no fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person (which is a serving of idols), hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

6 Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the children of unbelief.  7 Be ye not therefore partakers with them.  8 For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk then as children of the light.  9 For the fruit of the light is in all goodness, and justice, and truth;  10 Proving what is well pleasing to God:

11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.  12 For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.  13 But all things that are reproved, are made manifest by the light; for all that is made manifest is light.  14 Wherefore he saith: Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead: and Christ unwise, (Ephesians 5: 1-15.)

In these days, however, all that is salacious and shameful are spoken about openly, and, the leaving aside the shamelessness of Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis and her “special prosecutor” in “election fraud” case she is bringing against former President Donald John Trump, it is particularly diabolical that that which should never be named among us will take center stage in the Alvin Bragg “Get Trump” case that will start on Monday of Holy Week, March 25, 2024 (the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is transferred to Monday, April 8, 2024)! The Alvin Bragg case, though, will have competition from the bread and circuses found in the opening of the major league baseball season on Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division 1 Men’s Basketball “Elite Eight” games on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Tell me that this is not entirely diabolical.)

More salacious details, this time concerning the former president’s obsession with carnal pleasure and his penchant for nondisclosure agreements, will be the central focus of this trial, that is taking place even though the Federal Election Commission nor the anti-Trump lawyers the offices of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York found any violation of laws. That Alvin “Let ‘Em Loose to Loot, Pillage, and Mug Again and Again” Bragg has sought to bring this case demonstrates yet again that there can be no justice a world that is not informed by the binding precepts of the Divine and Natural Laws as they have been entrusted to Holy Mother Church. Catholics must not permit themselves to get embroiled in Holy Week, of all weeks, in paying any attention at all to these tawdry matters.

It is the case, of course, that former President Donald John Trump is being subject to manifold injustices on the natural level. While it is true that some of these injustices were the result of imprudence and an absolute lack of self-knowledge, he has been singled out solely because he was perceived as a threat to Barack Hussein Obama’s “transformative” policies that were supposed to continue in perpetuity, and it may very well be the case that the Federal Bureau of Investigation raid on his Mar-a-Lago compound was undertaken to recover classified documents proving that Obama himself ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to develop overseas contacts to entrap Trump’s associates in various schemes so as to extract information to discredit him and his presidential candidacy:

he U.S. Intelligence Community asked fellow members of the “‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies,” sources told a small team of independent reporters who broke the story yesterday. 

In “CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy on Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say,” journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag reported that top-line takeaway, along with several other key details. According to the authors, “multiple credible sources,” said that “the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.” 

The article, published on Shellenberger’s Substack, noted, “Until now, the official story has been that the FBI’s investigation began after Australian intelligence officials told US officials that a Trump aide had boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damning material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.” That probe, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, launched on July 31, 2016, although Special Counsel John Durham would later conclude the Australian tip failed to justify the investigation into the Trump campaign. 

Spying on Trump

However, British intelligence sources began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies possibly as early as 2015, according to Tuesday’s blockbuster article. Several outlets had previously reported that the British Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, had discovered “alleged ties between Trump and the Russian government.”

According to the British-based Guardian, “a source close to UK intelligence” claimed, “GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents.” Yet the Guardian reported:

GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.

Not so, according to Shellenberger, Taibbi, and Gutentag’s sources, who were familiar with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s investigation. “In truth, the US IC asked the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies,” the journalists reported their sources as saying, with the Five Eyes nations being the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Sources also claimed, according to Tuesday’s article, that “President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had identified 26 Trump associates for the Five Eyes to target.” According to the journalists, a source confirmed the IC had “identified [those associates] as people to ‘bump,’ or make contact with or manipulate,” and claimed the individuals were “targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation.”

A source close to the investigation reportedly told the team of journalists that “[t]hey were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” and “sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. The MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up.”

Shellenberger, Taibbi, and Gutentag further reported their sources’ claim that “[u]nknown details about the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and raw intelligence related to the IC’s surveillance of the Trump campaign are in a 10-inch binder that Trump ordered to be declassified at the very end of his term.” The three journalists stressed that this new information “is supported by testimony already in the public record.” In fact, much of the article confirms theories developed from the evidence gleaned over the years. . . .

It seems unlikely there will be anything in writing to establish John Brennan or another member of the U.S. Intelligence Community solicited assistance from the other members of Five Eyes. Nonetheless, Americans deserve to know what was in that 10-inch binder and which foreign intelligence services interfered in our 2016 election by “bumping” members of the Trump campaign to craft the Russia hoax. 

The now-known significance of that binder also raises the specter that the search of Mar-a-Lago wasn’t to protect classified materials but to protect intelligence agencies — American and foreign. (Sources: Intel Agencies Told Foreigners To Spy On Trump's 2016 Campaign.)

As I have noted several times in the past, imagine what the apparatchiks would have done to Donald John Trump if he actually stood for Christ the King and His Catholic Church. The apparatchiks feared him merely because he was a threat, as they perceived it, to their hegemony over American politics and foreign policy. Yes, Donald John Trump is a continuing victim of one state-sponsored injustice after another.

This having been noted, though, it is even more tragic for Trump that does not realize that there is no injustice that he can suffer that is the equal of what any of his sins of blasphemy, scurrility, self-boasting, impurity, and mendacity did to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that caused His Most Blessed Mother to suffer in perfect compassion with Him as our Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate.

Catholics must accept God’s Holy Will in all things and to stop kicking against the goad when things in their own lives or in the world turn out as they either expected or had prayed that they would be. It is because former President Donald John Trump is incapable of accepting God’s Holy Will as He manifests itself to him in the economy of Divine Providence that he, a serial blasphemer who uses the most foul, vulgar language in his private life and in his notorious “rallies” before throngs of his fellow blasphemers and users of profane crudities as part of their own speech, must lash out at anyone, friend or foe, who criticizes him and/or does not do what he wants done or fail to change the course of things as they have unfolded within the Providence of God.

Blessed Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., who was a confessor of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and of the Princess of York, Mary of Modena, the wife of the last Catholic king of England, King James II, at the Court of Saint James, wrote a short book on Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence that has much to teach each of us about the necessity of refusing to be agitated in the midst of the events of this world and stop the utter insanity of Catholics, of all people, wasting their good Catholic time on addictions to conspiracy websites, especially QAnon, that elevate their hopes for some “naturalistic” shortcut to prevent the chastisements of the just God from being delivered upon us.

Here are some relevant passages from Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence:

It is one of the most firmly established and most consoling of the truths that have been revealed to us that (apart from sin) nothing happens to us in life unless God wills it so. Wealth and poverty alike come from Him. If we fall ill, God is the cause of our illness; if we get well, our recovery is due to God. We owe our lives entirely to Him, and when death comes to put an end to life, His will be the hand that deals the blow.

But should we attribute it to God when we are unjustly persecuted? Yes, He is the only person you can charge with the wrong you suffer. He is not the cause of the sin the person commits by ill-treating you, but He is the cause of the suffering that person inflicts on you while sinning. God did not inspire your enemy with the will to harm you, but He gave him the power to do so. If you receive a wound, do not doubt but that it is God Himself who has wounded you. If all living creatures were to league themselves against you, unless the Creator wished it and joined with them and gave them the strength and means to carry out their purpose, they would never succeed. You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above, the Savior of the world said to Pilate. We can say the same to demons and men, to the brute beasts and to whatever exists — You would not be able to disturb me or harm me as you do unless God had ordered it so. You are sent by Him, you are given the power by Him to tempt me and to make me suffer. You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above.

If from time to time we meditated seriously on this truth of our faith it would be enough to stifle all complaint in whatever loss or misfortune we suffer. What I have the Lord gave me, it has been taken away by Him. It is not a lawsuit or a thief that has ruined you or a certain person that has slandered you; if your child dies it is not by accident or wrong treatment, but because God, to whom all belongs, has not wished you to keep it longer.  (Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, p. 40, as found online at: Trustful Surrender To Divine Providence.)

As has been noted so many hundreds of times before on this site, this is the moment in God has from all eternity chosen us to live.

God is Omniscient. He lives outside of time and space. He sees both the beginning and the end of the world as an instant “now.”

This means that we must trust in Him at all times without complaint and to pray for the desire to accept the crosses of any given moment as the path He has chosen for us to work out our salvation in fear and in trembling as we seek to give glory unto Him as the consecrated slaves of His Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We are not to live our lives in fear of the titans of the corporate world, including those in “Big Tech, or in fear of the forgettable men of politics who must meet Christ the King as their Divine Judge when they die after lifetimes of scoffing at Him, His Holy Church, and applicability, if not the very existence, of His sacred truths in the social lives of men and their nations.

Remember, God is more powerful than Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, Kamala Harris, Charles Schumer, Hakeen Jeffries, Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Nathan Wade, Addison Mitchell McConnell, Gavin Newsom, Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff, Christopher Wray, Bill or Hillary Clinton, Barack or Michelle Obama, or Merrick Garland, et al. We must have an abiding trust in Divine Providence, and to recognize that the United States of America is overdue for the chastisement that is about to descend upon us.

Perhaps it is wise to consider the account of a locution that Saint Anthony Mary Claret had on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 1859:

"On Christmas Day God infused into me the love of persecution and calumnies. . . . I dreamed I was imprisoned for a crime of which I was innocent. . . . To one who would have defended me, as St. Peter wished to defend Our Savior, I said: 'Shall I not drink the chalice my Father has given me?'

"On January 6, 1859, Our Lord made known to me that I am like the earth . . . which is trampled upon, yet doesn't speak. I, too, must be trodden underfoot and say nothing. The earth suffers cultivation. I must suffer mortification. Finally, to produce anything, the earth needs water; I, for the performance of good works, divine grace."

How consoling it must have been to hear Jesus promise him divine love, while tenderly addressing him as: "My little Anthony"--on April 27, 1859! And how he strove, ever harder, to obey his Redeemer's injunction, given at 4:25 a.m., on September 4, of that same year: "You have to teach your missionaries mortification, Anthony," to which, a few moments later, Our Lady added, "Thus will you reap fruit in souls, Anthony!"

And, now conditioned to receive supernatural messages in precise words and audible tones, and when they were precepts, to obey perfectly, he was ready for the most glorious promise and the most portentous revelation of all. "At 7:30 on the morning of September 23, Our Lord told me: 'You will fly across the earth . . . to preach of the immense chastisements soon to come to pass.' And He gave me to understand those words of the Apocalypse: 'And I behold and heard the voice of one eagle flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a a loud voice: Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth; by reason of the rest of the voices of the three angels who are yet to sound the trumpet.' this meant that the three great judgments of God that are going to fall upon the world are: 1) Protestantism and Communism; 2) the four archdemons who will,in a truly frightful manner, incite all to the love of pleasure, money, reason and independence of will; 3) the great wars with their horrible consequences."

Can we read this prophecy, set down for us a century ago, just when our world was entering upon the "golden age" of industry and commerce, of the scientific achievement that our grandfathers were assured was destined to create a life so good for all peoples that war would be banished forever, and doubt from whence it came? And do we dare to trace it from the Protestant Reformation to the curse of Communism; from the conquest of materialism to the deification of poor weak human reason and self-determination into "the great wars and their horrible consequences"! Upon the clean tablet of Anthony Claret's selfless spirit Our Lord engraved the warning His servant was to spell out for us" the incredible but inevitable graph of the "progress" of one century--our century! (Franchon Royer, The Life of St. Anthony Mary Claret, published originally in 1957 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, pp. 211-213.) 

Americans brought Protestantism with them to Cuba in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and thereafter. Communism followed in its wake sixty and one-half years later. 

The United States of America is founded upon Calvinist and Judeo-Masonoic principles. Communism was bound to follow over the course of time, and it is here in fact if not yet in name.

We must trust in God's Holy Providence and recognize the prophetic moment in which we are living.

Our Lady herself called upon Saint Anthony Mary Claret to be the new Saint Dominic of his time in order to spread devotion to her Most Holy Rosary:

On various other occasions during that perplexing year [1857] which had brought him home to Spain, he had been blessed by direct messages--in words--from the Blessed Mother. In October: "Now you know; be sorry for the sins of your pat life, and watchful in the future. . . . Do you hear me, Anthony? Be watchful in the future. This is what I have to say to you." And later: "You must be the Dominic of these times in propagating devotion to the Rosary."  (Franchon Royer, The Life of St. Anthony Mary Claret, published originally in 1957 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, p. 211.)

Fear of the events of this world must have no place in the life of a Catholic as the only thing that we must fear is Mortal Sin and terrible prospect of dying therein.

In a word, we must, as Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere wrote, trust in God’s inscrutable wisdom:

Trust in God's Wisdom

It is then a truth of our faith that God is responsible for all the happenings we complain of in the world and, furthermore, we cannot doubt that all the misfortunes God sends us have a very useful purpose. We cannot doubt it without imputing to God a lack of judgment in deciding what is advantageous for us.

It is usually the case that other people can see better than we can ourselves what is good for us. It would be foolish to think that we can see better than God Himself, Who is not subject to any of the passions that blind us, knows the future and can foresee all events and the consequences of every action.

Experience shows that even the gravest misfortunes can have good results and the greatest successes end in disaster. A rule also that God usually follows is to attain His ends by ways that are the opposite to those human prudence would normally choose.

In our ignorance of what the future holds, how can we be so bold as to question what comes about by God's permission? Surely it is reasonable to think that our complaints are groundless and that instead of complaining we ought to be thanking Providence. Joseph was sold into slavery and thrown into prison. If he had felt aggrieved at these apparent misfortunes, he would really have been feeling aggrieved at his happiness for they were the steps to the throne of Egypt. Saul loses his father's asses and has to go on a long vain hunt for them. But if he had felt annoyed at the great waste of time and energy it caused him, his annoyance could not have been more unreasonable as it was all a means of bringing him to the prophet who was to anoint him king of his people.

Let us imagine our confusion when we appear before God and understand the reasons why He sent us the crosses we accept so unwillingly. The death of a child will then be seen as its rescue from some great evil had it lived, separation from the woman you love the means of saving you from an unhappy marriage, a severe illness the reason for many years of life afterwards, loss of money the means of saving your soul from eternal loss. So what are we worried about?

God is looking after us and yet we are full of anxiety! We trust ourselves to a doctor because we suppose he knows his business. He orders an operation which involves cutting away part of our body and we accept it. We are grateful to him and pay him a large fee because we judge he would not act as he does unless the remedy were necessary, and we must rely on his skill. Yet we are unwilling to treat God in the same way! It looks as if we do not trust His wisdom and are afraid He cannot do His job properly. We allow ourselves to be operated on by a man who may easily make a mistake — a mistake which may cost us our life — and protest when God sets to work on us.

If we could see all He sees we would unhesitatingly wish all He wishes. We would beg Him on bended knees for those afflictions we now ask Him to spare us. To all of us He addresses the words spoken to the Sons of Zebedee: You know not what you ask — 0 blind of heart, your ignorance saddens me. Let me manage your affairs and look after your interests. I know what you need better than you do yourselves. If I paid heed to what you think you need you would have been hopelessly ruined long ago.  (Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, pp. 41-42, as found online at: Trustful Surrender To Divine Providence.)

Why are we so hesitant to accept these truths and thus to leave in peace?

Remember, the babblers of talk radio and all news cable channels and various naturalistic websites do not have anything to offer their listeners and/or viewers as they do not see the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and thus wind up heightening anxiety and raising hopes in secular “solutions” needlessly.

Trials are the means by which we win God’s favor and show forth our total trust in Him to others:

When God sends us trials

If you would be convinced that in all He allows and in all that happens to you God has no other end in view but your real advantage and your eternal happiness, reflect a moment on all He has done for you; you are now suffering, but remember that the author of this suffering is He who chose to spend His life suffering to save you from everlasting suffering, whose angel is always at your side guarding your body and soul by His order, who sacrifices Himself daily on the altar to expiate your sins and appease His Father's anger, who comes lovingly to you in the Holy Eucharist and whose greatest pleasure is to be united to you. We must be very ungrateful to mistrust Him after

He has shown such proofs of His love and to imagine that He can intend us harm. But, you will say, this blow is a cruel one, He strikes too hard. What have you to fear from a hand that was pierced and nailed to the cross for you? — The path I have to tread is full of thorns. If there is no other to reach heaven by, do you prefer to perish forever rather than to suffer for a time? Is it not the same path He trod before you out of love for you? Is there a thorn in it that He has not reddened with His own blood? — The chalice He offers you is a bitter one. But remember that it is your Redeemer who offers it.

Loving you as He does, could He bring Himself to treat you so severely if the need were not urgent, the gain not worthwhile? Can we dare to refuse the chalice He has prepared for us Himself?

Reflect well on this. It should be enough to make us accept and love whatever trials He intends we should suffer. Moreover it is the certain means of securing our happiness in this life quite apart from the next.

Loving recourse to God

Let us now suppose that by these reflections and the help of God you have freed yourself from all worldly desires and can now say to yourself: All is vanity and nothing can satisfy my heart. The things that I so earnestly desire may not be at all the things that will bring me happiness. It is difficult for me to distinguish what is good from what is harmful because good and evil are nearly always mixed, and what was good for yesterday may be bad for today. My desires are only a source of worry and my efforts to realize them mostly end in failure. After all, the will of God is bound to prevail in the end.

Nothing can be done without His command, and He cannot ordain anything that is not for my good.

After this let us suppose that you turn to God with blind trust and surrender yourself unconditionally and unreservedly to Him, entirely resolved to put aside your own hopes and fears; in short, determined to wish nothing except what He wishes and to wish all that He wishes. From this moment you will acquire perfect liberty and will never again be able to feel troubled or uneasy, and there is no power on earth capable of doing you violence or giving you a moment's unrest.

You may object that a person on whom both good and evil make the same impression is a pure fiction. It is nothing of the kind. I know people who are just as happy if they are sick or if they are well, if they are badly off or they are well off. I know some who even prefer illness and poverty to health and riches.

Moreover it is all the more remarkable that the more we submit to God's will, the more He tries to meet our wishes. It would seem that as soon as we make it our sole aim to obey Him, He on His part does His best to try and please us. Not only does He answer our prayers but He even forestalls them by granting the very desires we have endeavored to stifle in our hearts in order to please Him, and granting them in a measure we had never imagined.

Finally, the happiness of the person whose will is entirely submitted to God's is constant, unchangeable and endless. No fear comes to disturb it for no accident can destroy it. He is like a man seated on a rock in the middle of the ocean who looks on the fury of the waves without dismay and can amuse himself watching and counting them as they roar and break at his feet. Whether the sea is calm or rough, whichever way the waves are carried by the wind is a matter of indifference to him, for the place where he is firm and unshakeable. That is the reason for the peaceful and untroubled expression we find on the faces of those who have dedicated themselves to God. Practice of trustful surrender It remains to be seen how we can attain to this happy state.

One sure way to lead us to it is the frequent practice of the virtue of submission. But as the opportunities for practicing it in a big way come rather seldom, we must take advantage of the small ones which occur daily, and which will soon put us in a position to face the greater trials with equanimity when the time comes. There is no one who does not experience a hundred small annoyances every day, caused either by our own carelessness or inattention, or by the inconsideration or spite of other people, or by pure accident. Our whole lives are made up of incidents of this kind, occurring ceaselessly from one minute to another and producing a host of involuntary feelings of dislike and aversion, envy, fear and impatience to trouble the serenity of our minds. We let an incautious word slip out and wish we had not said it; someone says something we find offensive; we have to wait a long time to be served when we are in a hurry; we are irritated by a child's boisterousness; a boring acquaintance buttonholes us in the street; a car splashes us with mud; the weather spoils our outing; our work is not going as well as we would wish; a tool breaks at a critical moment; we get our clothes torn or stained — these are not occasions for practicing heroic virtue but they can be a means of acquiring it if we wish. If we were careful to offer all these petty annoyances to God and accept them as being ordered by His providence we would soon be in a position to support the greatest misfortunes that can happen to us, besides at the same time insensibly drawing close to intimate union with God.

To this exercise — so easy and yet so useful for us and pleasing to God — another may be added. Every morning as soon as you get up think of all the most disagreeable things that could happen to you during the day. Your house might be burnt down, you might lose your job or all your savings, or be run over, or sudden death might come to you or to a person you love. Accept these misfortunes should it please God to allow them; compel your will to agree to the sacrifice and give yourself no rest until you really feel prepared to wish or not to wish all that God may wish or not wish.

Finally, if some great misfortune should actually happen, instead of wasting time in complaint or self-pity, go throw yourself at once at the feet of your Savior and implore His grace to bear your trial with fortitude and patience. A man who has been badly wounded does not, if he is wise, chase after his assailant, but makes straight for a doctor who may save his life. Even if you wanted to confront the person responsible for your misfortune, it would still be to God you would have to go, for there can be no other cause of it than He.

So go to God, but go at once, go there and then. Let this be your first thought. Go and report to Him what He has done to you. Kiss the hands of God crucified for you, the hands that have struck you and caused you to suffer. Repeat over and over again to Him His own words to His Father while He was suffering: Not My will but Thine be done. In all that Thou wishest of me, today and for always, in heaven and on earth, let Thy will be done, but let it be done on earth as it is done in heaven. (Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, pp. 42-45, as found online at: Trustful Surrender To Divine Providence.)

We should meditate upon the wisdom contained in Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere’s text, especially as they relate to going to God “at once” as our “first thought” and then to thank him for the adversities, both individual and social, that He makes manifest to us as part of the loving plan of His Divine Providence for us.

Although I will append part of the beginning and the end of Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence in Appendix B below, it is very instructive for present purposes to consider the following passage concerning public calamities:

We ought to conform to God's Will in all public calamities such as war, famine and pestilence, and reverence and adore His judgments with deep humility in the firm belief that, however severe they may seem, the God of infinite goodness would not send such disasters unless some great good were to results from them. Consider how many souls may be saved through tribulations which would otherwise be lost, how many persons through affliction are converted to God and die with sincere repentance for their sins. What may appear a scourge and punishment is often a sign of great grace and mercy.

As far as we are personally concerned, let us meditate well on this truth of our faith that the very hairs of our head are numbered, and not one of them will fall except by the will of God. In other words we cannot suffer the least harm unless He wills and orders it. Relying on this truth we can easily understand that we have nothing more or less to fear in times of public calamity that at any other time. God can just as easily protect us in the midst of general ruin and despair as He can deliver us from evil while all around is peace and content. The only thing we need to be concerned about is to gain His favor, and this is the inevitable effect of conforming our will to His. Let us therefore hasten to accept from His hand all that He sends us, and as a result of our trustful surrender He will either cause us to fain the greatest advantages from our misfortunes or else spare us them altogether. (Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, pp. 21-22, as found online at: Trustful Surrender To Divine Providence.)

Pray always to accept God’s Holy Will in all things, especially during the chastisements of the present times and see in those chastisements the means by which we can sanctify and thus save our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Pope Pius XII used his first encyclical letter, Summi Pontificatus, the darkness that had descended on the world shortly after the onset of World War II, and he explain the darkness was the result of the revolt against the Chair of Saint Peter as the seat of human unity that began in the Sixteenth Century:

19. As Vicar of Him Who in a decisive hour pronounced before the highest earthly authority of that day, the great words: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, hearest My voice” (Saint John xviii. 37), We feel We owe no greater debt to Our office and to Our time than to testify to the truth with Apostolic firmness: “to give testimony to the truth.” This duty necessarily entails the exposition and confutation of errors and human faults; for these must be made known before it is possible to tend and to heal them. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (Saint John viii. 32).

20. In the fulfillment of this, Our duty, we shall not let Ourselves be influenced by earthly considerations nor be held back by mistrust or opposition, by rebuffs or lack of appreciation of Our words, nor yet by fear of misconceptions and misinterpretations. We shall fulfill Our duty, animated ever with that paternal charity which, while it suffers from the evils which afflict Our children, at the same time points out to them the remedy; We shall strive to imitate the Divine Model of shepherds, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Who is light as well as love: “Doing the truth in charity” (Ephesians iv. 15).

21. At the head of the road which leads to the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the present day stand the nefarious efforts of not a few to dethrone Christ; the abandonment of the law of truth which He proclaimed and of the law of love which is the life breath of His Kingdom.

22. In the recognition of the royal prerogatives of Christ and in the return of individuals and of society to the law of His truth and of His love lies the only way to salvation.

23. Venerable Brethren, as We write these lines the terrible news comes to Us that the dread tempest of war is already raging despite all Our efforts to avert it. When We think of the wave of suffering that has come on countless people who but yesterday enjoyed in the environment of their homes some little degree of well-being, We are tempted to lay down Our pen. Our paternal heart is torn by anguish as We look ahead to all that will yet come forth from the baneful seed of violence and of hatred for which the sword today ploughs the blood-drenched furrow.

24. But precisely because of this apocalyptic foresight of disaster, imminent and remote, We feel We have a duty to raise with still greater insistence the eyes and hearts of those in whom there yet remains good will to the One from Whom alone comes the salvation of the world — to One Whose almighty and merciful Hand can alone calm this tempest — to the One Whose truth and Whose love can enlighten the intellects and inflame the hearts of so great a section of mankind plunged in error, selfishness, strife and struggle, so as to give it a new orientation in the spirit of the Kingship of Christ.

25. Perhaps — God grant it — one may hope that this hour of direct need may bring a change of outlook and sentiment to those many who, till now, have walked with blind faith along the path of popular modern errors unconscious of the treacherous and insecure ground on which they trod. Perhaps the many who have not grasped the importance of the educational and pastoral mission of the Church will now understand better her warnings, scouted in the false security of the past. No defense of Christianity could be more effective than the present straits. From the immense vortex of error and anti-Christian movements there has come forth a crop of such poignant disasters as to constitute a condemnation surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely theoretical refutation.

26. Hours of painful disillusionment are often hours of grace — “a passage of the Lord” (cf. Exodus xii. 11), when doors which in other circumstances would have remained shut, open at Our Savior’s words: “Behold, I stand at the gate and knock” (Apocalypse iii. 20). God knows that Our heart goes out in affectionate sympathy and spiritual joy to those who, as a result of such painful trials, feel within them an effective and salutary thirst for the truth, justice and peace of Christ. But for those also for whom as yet the hour of light from on high has not come, Our heart knows only love, Our lips move only in prayer to the Father of Light that He may cause to shine in their hearts, indifferent as yet or hostile to Christ, a ray of that Light which once transformed Saul into Paul; of that Light which has shown its mysterious power strongest in the times of greatest difficulty for the Church.

27. A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in face of the errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another time unless there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the moment We limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations.

28. The present age, Venerable Brethren, by adding new errors to the doctrinal aberrations of the past, has pushed these to extremes which lead inevitably to a drift towards chaos. Before all else, it is certain that the radical and ultimate cause of the evils which We deplore in modern society is the denial and rejection of a universal norm of morality as well for individual and social life as for international relations; We mean the disregard, so common nowadays, and the forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundation in God, Almighty Creator and Father of all, supreme and absolute Lawgiver, all-wise and just Judge of human actions. When God is hated, every basis of morality is undermined; the voice of conscience is stilled or at any rate grows very faint, that voice which teaches even to the illiterate and to uncivilized tribes what is good and what is bad, what lawful, what forbidden, and makes men feel themselves responsible for their actions to a Supreme Judge.

29. The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin, in Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian teaching of which the Chair of Peter is the depository and exponent. That teaching had once given spiritual cohesion to a Europe which, educated, ennobled and civilized by the Cross, had reached such a degree of civil progress as to become the teacher of other peoples, of other continents. But, cut off from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Savior, and have hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay.

30. The Holy Gospel narrates that when Jesus was crucified “there was darkness over the whole earth” (Matthew xxvii. 45); a terrifying symbol of what happened and what still happens spiritually wherever incredulity, blind and proud of itself, has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life, especially from public life, and has undermined faith in God as well as faith in Christ. The consequence is that the moral values by which in other times public and private conduct was gauged have fallen into disuse; and the much vaunted civilization of society, which has made ever more rapid progress, withdrawing man, the family and the State from the beneficent and regenerating effects of the idea of God and the teaching of the Church, has caused to reappear, in regions in which for many centuries shone the splendors of Christian civilization, in a manner ever clearer, ever more distinct, ever more distressing, the signs of a corrupt and corrupting paganism: “There was darkness when they crucified Jesus” (Roman Breviary, Good Friday, Response Five).

31. Many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not fully conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases, which proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in which they were before held; nor did they then foresee the bitter consequences of bartering the truth that sets free, for error which enslaves. They did not realize that, in renouncing the infinitely wise and paternal laws of God, and the unifying and elevating doctrines of Christ’s love, they were resigning themselves to the whim of a poor, fickle human wisdom; they spoke of progress, when they were going back; of being raised, when they groveled; of arriving at man’s estate, when they stooped to servility. They did not perceive the inability of all human effort to replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it; “they became vain in their thoughts” (Romans i. 21).

32. With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men’s minds of the light of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of that internal and external, private and public order, which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of States.

33. It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of brotherhood through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching, she was not free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her waste; but perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to the possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful, which, by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an honorable settlement. In Our days, on the contrary, dissensions come not only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939.)

Catholicism is the one and only path to both personal salvation and a truly just social order premised upon fostering those conditions conductive to the sanctification and salvation of souls, the right ordering of which is an absolute precondition for that just social order wherein all men can see in each other the Divine impress, treat each other as they would treat Our Blessed Lord and Saviour in the very Flesh, acting justly according in all things according to the mind of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, and forgiving each other as they themselves are forgiven within the Sacred Tribunal of Penance.

No amount of attention we pay to the bread and circuses, or dog and pony shows of naturalism can help us sanctify and save our immortal souls. The amount of time even many truly devout Catholics spend on these distractions, each of which is usually a cause of agitation within oneself and needless conflict with others, takes away from the time that can be used far more profitably unto eternity by means of prayer, especially praying that extra Rosary or two, and the reading of Sacred Scripture and good spiritual reflections on the mysteries of our salvation and how to climb the slippery ladder of perfection that has been climbed so successfully by the members of the Church Triumphant in Heaven. We must make the best Lent of our lives here in the year of Our Lord 2024.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on the First Sunday of Lent, which is celebrated today, Sunday, February 18 2024, which is also the Commemoration of Saint Simeon the Bishop and Saint Bernadette Soubirous, reminds us that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ underwent His temptations in the desert to show us that we, too, empowered by the ineffable graces He has won for us during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our souls through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, can overcome the devil, his pomps and his empty works, including everything to with worldly and fleshly desires (I will interject at various points):

Lent solemnly opens today. We have already noticed that the four preceding days were added since the time of Gregory the Great, in order to make up Forty days of fasting. Neither can we look upon Ash Wednesday as the solemn opening of the Season, for the Faithful are not bound to hear Mass on that day. The Holy Church, seeing her children now assembled together, speaks to them, in her Office of Matins, these eloquent and noble words of St. Leo the Great: “Having to announce to you, dearly beloved, the most sacred and chief Fast, how can I more appropriately begin, than with the words of the Apostle (in whom Christ himself spoke), and by saying to you what has just been read: Behold! now is the acceptable time; behold! now is the day of salvation. For although there be no time which is not replete with divine gifts, and we may always, by God’s grace, have access to his mercy—yet ought we all to redouble our efforts to make spiritual progress and be animated with unusual confidence now that the anniversary of the day of our Redemption is approaching, inviting us to devote ourselves to every good work, that so we may celebrate, with purity of body and mind, the incomparable Mystery of our Lord’s Passion.

“It is true, that our devotion and reverence towards so great a Mystery should be kept up during the whole year, and we ourselves be, at all times, in the eyes of God, the same as we are bound to be at the Easter Solemnity. But this is an effort which only few among us have the courage to sustain. The weakness of the flesh induces us to relent our austerities; the various occupations of every-day life take up our thoughts; and thus, even the virtuous find their hearts clogged by this world’s dust. Hence it is, that our Lord has most providentially given us these Forty Days, whose holy exercises should be to us a remedy, whereby to regain our purity of soul. The good works and the holy fastings of this Season were instituted as an atonement and obliteration of the sins we commit during the rest of the Year.

“Now, therefore, that we are about to enter upon these days, which are so full of mystery, and were instituted for the holy purpose of purifying both our soul and body, let us, dearly beloved, be careful to do as the Apostle bids us, and cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and the spirit: that thus the combat between the two substances being made less fierce, the soul, which, when she herself is subject to God, ought to be the ruler of the body, will recover her own dignity and position. Let us also avoid giving offence to any man, so that there be none to blame or speak evil things of us. For we deserve the harsh remarks of infidels, and we provoke the tongues of the wicked to blaspheme religion, when we, who fast, lead unholy lives. For our Fast does not consist in the mere abstaining from food; nor is it of much use to deny food to our body, unless we restrain the soul from sin.” [Fourth Sermon for Lent]

Interjection Number One:

We must, of course, fast and abstain from food, especially those that we find most pleasurable.

More than that, however, we must fast from any sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, and we must fast from any kind of total immersion in the world, especially during a time when more people are not are engrossed in the events of world that is awash with barbarism, nihilism, statism, and hedonism. There is no salvation in politics. Give up the American hobby horse during Lent.

Each Sunday of Lent offers to our consideration a passage from the Gospel, which is in keeping with the sentiments wherewith the Church would have us be filled. To-day she brings before us the Temptation of our Lord in the Desert. What light and encouragement there is for us in this instruction!

We acknowledge ourselves to be sinners; we are engaged, at this very time, in doing penance for the sins we have committed;- but, how was it that we fell into sin? The devil tempted us; we did not reject the temptation; then, we yielded to the suggestion, and the sin was committed. This is the history of our past; and such it would, also, be for the future, were we not to profit by the lesson given us, to-day, by our Redeemer.

When the Apostle speaks of the wonderful mercy shown us by our Divine Savior, who vouchsafed to make himself like to us in all things, save in sin, he justly lays stress on his temptations. He who was very God, humbled himself even so low as this, to prove how tenderly he compassionated us. Here, then, we have the Saint of Saints allowing the wicked spirit to approach him, in order that we might learn from His example how we are to gain victory under temptation.

Satan has had his eye upon Jesus; he is troubled at beholding such matchless virtue. The wonderful circumstances of his Birth—the Shepherds called by Angels to his Crib, and the Magi guided by the Star; the Infant’s escape from Herod’s plot; the testimony rendered to this new Prophet by John the Baptist—all these things which seem so out of keeping with the thirty years spent in obscurity at Nazareth are a mystery to the infernal serpent, and fill him with apprehension. The ineffable mystery of the Incarnation has been accomplished unknown to him; he never once suspects that the humble Virgin, Mary, is she who was  ; but foretold by the Prophet Isaias, as having to bring forth the Emmanuel he is aware that the time is to come, that the last Week spoken of to Daniel has begun its course, and that the very Pagans are looking towards Judea for a Deliverer. He is afraid of this Jesus; he resolves to speak with him, and elicit from him some expression which will show him whether he be or not the Son of God; he will tempt him to some imperfection, or sin, which, should he commit, will prove that the object of so much fear is, after all, but a mortal and sinful Man.

The enemy of God and men was, of course, disappointed. He approached Jesus; but all his efforts only turn to his own confusion. Our Redeemer, with all the self-possession and easy majesty of a God-Man, repels the attacks of Satan; but he reveals not his heavenly origin. The wicked spirit retires, without having made any discovery beyond this, – that Jesus is a prophet, faithful to God. Later on, when he sees the Son of God treated with contempt, calumniated, and persecuted; when he finds, that his own attempts to have him put to death, are so successful;- his pride and his blindness will be at their height: and not till Jesus expires on the Cross, will he learn, that his victim was not merely Man, but Man and God. Then will he discover, how all his plots against Jesus have but served to manifest, in all their beauty, the Mercy and Justice of God;- his Mercy, because be saved mankind: and his Justice, because be broke the power of hell for ever.

These were the designs of Divine Providence in permitting the wicked spirit to defile, by his presence, the retreat of Jesus, and speak to him, and lay his hands upon him. But, let us attentively consider the triple temptation in all its circumstances; for our Redeemer only suffered it, in order that he might instruct and encourage us.

We have three enemies to fight against; our soul has three dangers; for as the Beloved Disciple says: All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life! By the concupiscence of the flesh, is meant the love of sensual things, which covets whatever is agreeable to the flesh and, when not curbed, draws the soul into unlawful pleasures. Concupiscence of the eyes expresses the love of the goods of this world, such as riches, and possessions; these dazzle the eye, and then seduce the heart. Pride of life is that confidence in ourselves which leads us to be vain and presumptuous, and makes us forget that all we have—our life and our every good gift—we have from God. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, First Sunday of Lent.)

Interjection Number Two:

Most of those in public life exhibit a confidence in themselves that leads them to be vain and presumptuous. As noted in other commentaries over the last few years, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Donald John Trump, though they have different styles, are both vain and presumptuous. Biden believes he is the “most qualified” person to be president. Trump believes that he is the only one who can “fix” whose root causes, Original and Actual Sin, he could never identify in a gazillion years. We are needlessly divided into warring camps of naturalism to support demigods of one sort or another who are incapable of providing true leadership because they lack humility and make a mockery of all Christian virtues, including honesty in all things, modesty, and purity.

Not one of our sins but what comes from one of these three sources; not one of our temptations but what aims at making us accept the concupiscence of the flesh, or the concupiscence of the eyes, or the pride of life. Our Saviour, then, who would be our model in all things, deigned to subject himself to these three temptations.

First of all, Satan tempts him in what regards the Flesh:- he suggests to him to satisfy the cravings of hunger, by working a miracle, and changing the stones into bread. If Jesus consent, and show an eagerness in giving this indulgence to his body, the tempter will conclude that he is but a frail mortal, subject to concupiscence like other men. When he tempts us, who have inherited evil concupiscence from Adam, his suggestions go further than this; he endeavours to defile the soul by the body. But the sovereign holiness of the Incarnate Word could never permit Satan to use upon Him the power which he has received of tempting man in his outward senses. The lesson, therefore, which the Son of God here gives us, is one of temperance: but we know, that, for us, temperance is the mother of purity, and that intemperance excites our senses to rebel.

The second temptation is to pride; Cast thyself down; the Angels shall bear thee up in their hands. The enemy is anxious to see if the favours of heaven have produced in Jesus’ soul that haughtiness, that ungrateful self-confidence, which makes the creature arrogate God’s gifts to itself, and forget its benefactor. Here, also, he is foiled; our Redeemer’s humility confounds the pride of the rebel angel.

He then makes a last effort: he hopes to gain over by ambition Him who has given such proofs of temperance and humility. He shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and says to him: All these will I give thee, if falling down, thou wilt adore me. Jesus rejects the wretched offer, and drives from him the seducer, the prince of this world; hereby teaching us that we must despise the riches of this world, as often as our keeping our getting them is to be on the condition of our violating the law of God and paying homage to Satan.

But, let us observe how it is, that our Divine Model, our Redeemer, overcomes the tempter. Does be hearken to his words? Does he allow the temptation time? and give it strength by delay? We did so, when we were tempted, and we fell. But our Lord immediately meets each temptation with the shield of God’s word. He says: It is written: Not on bread alone doth man live. – It is written: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. – It is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve. – This, then, must be our practice for the time to come. Eve brought perdition on herself, and on the whole human race, because she listened to the serpent. He that dallies with temptation, is sure to fall. We are now in a Season of extraordinary grace; our hearts are on the watch, dangerous occasions are removed, everything that savours of worldliness is laid aside; our souls, purified by prayer, fasting, and almsdeeds, are to rise with Christ, to a new life;- but, shall we persevere? All depends upon how we behave under temptation. Here, at the very opening of Lent, the Church gives us this passage of the Holy Gospel, that we may have, not only precept, but example. If we be attentive and faithful, the lesson she gives us will produce its fruit; and when we come to the Easter Solemnity, we shall have those sure pledges of perseverance, –  vigilance, self-diffidence, prayer, and the never-failing help of Divine Grace. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, First Sunday of Lent.)

Lent is our time to withdraw from the world, not to hang with proverbial breath waiting for the results of primaries or the court cases that are nothing other than Soviet-style show trials. The world cannot be “saved” by secular means. We must be earnest about reforming our lives and making reparation for our sins, which have worsened the state of the world at large and of the Church Militant on earth far, far more than we might be willing to admit or might even be able to begin to understand until it is too late for us.

Begging Our Lady for her help during these days of Lent, may we grow ever more reliant upon her Most Holy Rosary and thus ever more confident and joyful to carry whatever crosses we are asked to bear for the Kingdom of her Divine Son, Who suffered lovingly in obedience to His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal God the Father in Heaven and to make it possible for us, whom He loves from the depths of His Most Sacred Heart, to enjoy an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise, where we will understand clearly that the Holy Cross of the Divine Redeemer is the one and only standard of true human liberty on earth and the one and only means by which we can sanctify and save our immortal souls.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!   

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us. 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint Simeon the Bishop, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Appendix A

First Sunday in Lent by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876, Sermon One

Then Jesus said to him: Be gone, Satan!"--Matt. 4 : 10.

There is but one evil, and that is sin. This evil has many different paths by which it approaches us. These paths are called temptations. It is true that of themselves temptations can not injure us. On the contrary, Holy Writ says: "Blessed is the man that endureth, for when he hath been proved he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him." All depends upon our withstanding them, and to be able to do this we must heed the admonition of Christ, we must watch and especially guard ourselves against those temptations through which Satan most frequently approaches man.

There are in particular three temptations to which today's Gospel refers, and to which a large portion of mankind fall victims; the three temptations, namely, with which Satan dared to tempt Christ, our Lord, Himself.

Let us see, today, what sort of temptations these are. Mary, thou mighty stronghold against the hosts of the tempter, give us thy assistance, that we may come forth victorious from the fight! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

And the tempter approaching Him, said: "Command that these stones be made bread!" To what temptation do these words refer? I say to that temptation with which Satan assaults man when he enters upon life--the immoderate care for the goods of this world. It is the temptation of excessive labor, and anxiety after a business profession in order to gain a position in society. Yes, for a great number, even for many who otherwise seem to live piously, this is the net which entangles them in numberless temptations.

This regard for the world frequently causes men to forget their last aim and end. Instead of thinking only of what is requisite; for salvation, and pursuing it with their whole heart and the entire strength of their will, they live altogether for earthly things, and think seriously of nothing else. This worldly care extinguishes all their longing after perfection, and causes them to neglect those means of divine grace which are placed within their reach.

The man who is a prey to this inordinate care begins the day without prayer, and without a right intention; he neglects Mass, pious reading, and the holy Sacraments. His excuse is that his business leaves him no time for devotion, while in his intercourse with the world temptations approach him by countless roads. He hopes to satisfy the cravings of his heart with temporal wealth and pleasures; he expects to change the hard and tasteless stones of worldly enjoyment into bread which will nourish his soul but he is mistaken.

These perverse sentiments of the heart open wide the gate to all kinds of temptations; egotism, envy, anger, enmity, intemperance, deceit and injustice enter, and the wretched man endeavors to serve two masters, God and the world. But the world, at last, completely ensnares him, and, instead of conquering temptation, he is vanquished by it.

Satan said to Jesus after he had carried Him to the pinnacle of the temple: "Cast thyself down!" To what temptation do these words refer? To that dangerous state of the heart which causes man through presumption to fall a victim of his own foolhardiness.

And how? He neither fears God, nor the possibility of committing sin; he trusts in himself too much, and thinks that there is no danger of his swerving from the right path, and, while thus feeling secure, instead of avoiding temptation, he runs into it.

To this class of tempted persons belong those who are satisfied with being nominal children of the true Church, and who think that, because they are members of that Church out of whose pale there is no salvation, they will, without doubt, gain heaven. In a word, they are strangers to that fear of which St. Paul speaks when he says: "Work your salvation with fear and trembling." To such people Satan need not go, they themselves seek him!

To this class belong also those who, in the selection of their place of business or their home, pay no attention to facilities for hearing Mass and receiving the Sacraments.

Finally, to this class belong those who are addicted to drinking, visiting barrooms, gambling; those who think only of pleasure, frequent dangerous company, read immoral books, and imagine that all this, in reality, has no evil consequences, and will not lead them into sin. Woe to these! They love the danger and will perish in it.

Lastly, Satan showed to Christ from the summit of a mountain all the kingdoms of the world, and said to Him: "All these will I give Thee if, falling down, thou wilt adore me." What temptation is this? It is the temptation of self-love, of vanity, of pride in all its forms, a sin which deprives even virtuous actions of their merit. It is that self-adoration which causes man, even in a life devoted to piety, to seek more his own honor than the honor of God.

And yet how small, how trivial, is the honor which the world can give to man. Even were it to bestow all its glory and applause; how infinitely small would this be, when compared to God and the kingdom which He has promised and will give us! Those who are convinced of this truth will doubtless meet the tempter with an energetic: "Be gone!"

But it is in this determination, in this energy, that man is most deficient. Were this not the case, did he not waver, Satan would not hope, by again and again renewing his temptations, to succeed in the end; he would not even dare to tempt us. He knows well that he can do us no harm by tempting us, provided we remain firm, but that, on the contrary, he would only give us occasions to merit and adorn our crown of victory with jewels of virtue. St. Ignatius says: "Courage on our part discourages Satan." If, however, he sees that we are in the least inclined to yield, then he is most persevering, and, tempting us again and again, attacks us on all sides and in all possible ways. Perceiving that he does not succeed in one attempt and through the instrumentality of one person, he makes a second attempt and seeks more efficient auxiliaries. He knows from experience how to undermine the foundation of great virtues and destroy them.

The one thing which frightens him and causes him to retreat is a decided: "Be gone!" In order, however, to feel strong and resolute, we must think daily and continually on the certainty of death, and on judgment, which one day will decide whether we are to dwell for evermore in heaven or in hell. If in temptation we turn to our crucified Saviour, and, making the sign of the cross, call on Jesus with the lips and the heart, Satan will flee, victory will be ours, and angels approaching us will console us with sweet thoughts of heaven! Amen! 

Appendix B

Second Sermon of Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., for the First Sunday of Lent

"And the tempter coming, said to Him."--Matt. 4:3

God wills that all men should be saved, as St. Paul assures us, and Lent reminds us emphatically of the truth of these words. Many of the mysteries of the life of Christ, to which the Church refers during Lent in the Gospels at Mass, are evidences that Christ came into the world to teach men how to live in order to gain salvation, especially the mysteries of His apostolic life, which ended with His suffering and death upon the cross.

God, it is true, allows Satan to tempt us, but only in order to prove our fidelity, and to recompense us the more in the world to come. If men fail in this trial of liberty, then they have not employed the means God offers them to issue victorious from the strife. What means are these? A glance at the manner in which the: Church observes Lent will answer this question.

Mary, Mother of the elect, pray for us that we may be of the number of those who stand victoriously the test of temptation! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

At the commencement of Lent the Church puts ashes upon the heads of her children, saying: "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and that into dust thou shalt return." The Church desires to keep the thought of the certainty and proximity of death alive in the hearts of her children. One of the chief reasons why so many souls, though ransomed by the blood of Christ, are lost, is their incomprehensible forgetfulness of death. If all men possessed that consciousness of death of which the Apostle speaks, and remembered its certainty, its nearness, they would never be lost for eternity. What is it that generally leads men into temptation and takes from them all strength and courage to withstand it?

His sinful inclinations, his desire for the goods, honors, and pleasures of this world, together with the forgetfulness of the certainty and nearness of death. Oh, that all men would each morning put ashes on their heads in spirit, and repeat the words of the Church on Ash Wednesday: Remember that thou art dust, and that to dust thou shalt return. Think that this day is perhaps your last! How many of those who in the morning go bright and happy to their labor, are brought home at night corpses! If this should be the case with you, what then? As ashes placed upon burning coals deaden and even extinguish their glow, so this recollection will reduce and stifle the fire of passion.

If men would occasionally take a solitary ramble in some cemetery, and thus awaken within themselves the recollection of the certainty and nearness of death, they would gain strength for the fight against temptations of selfishness, ambition, and worldliness. How wealth, honors, and pleasures lose their attraction in the silent cities of the dead! Smoke they are and vapor, viewed from the brink of the grave.

Is it not astonishing to see how anxious men are to render their condition in life as favorable to ease and comfort as possible, how careful they are to evade anything that might endanger their welfare in this world? They never give a thought to the shortness and uncertainty of this life, to the dangers that always hang over their heads; they do not consider that daily and hourly men die, and that soon they, too, must say to themselves: My turn has come.

They hear and know that nothing is so sure, nothing as inevitable as death, and yet as a saint of latter times, the blessed Hofbauer, whose canonization is now in progress, said: "Men know that they must die, and yet they do not believe it, but live as if this life were the only one they would ever possess, the only one for which they need care. Hence their negligence in all that pertains to their salvation, and hence also their eternal destruction."

The Church requires her children during Lent to mortify themselves by observing the laws prescribed for this season. She not only demands of them to abstain from meat and partake of only one meal a day, but she desires above all to awaken and strengthen in their hearts the spirit of self-abnegation. Holy Writ says: "The life of man upon earth is a warfare." To conduct it properly and victoriously we must follow the admonition of Christ and mortify ourselves.

The second cause of so many being lost is the want of the true spirit of repentance, and self-humiliation. Christ sent His Apostles as missionaries into the world with this message: Tell the people that if they do not repent they shall all perish. And St. Paul says: "And they who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences." Man craves happiness; while here below he wishes to enjoy the pleasures of an earthly paradise, and hopes one day to share, besides, the joys of heaven.

How many there are to whom the reproach of the Apostle may be justly addressed: "Whose god is their belly!" The desire of pleasure and excitement leads man into temptation, and causes him to indulge sinful inclinations, to commit mortal sin, and so lose eternal life.

The Church exhorts her children to live in retirement and meditation during Lent, and to devote more time to prayer and religious exercises. Why are so many souls lost even among the children of the Church? I answer, because they have not the spirit of prayer and contemplation, because they have not recourse to pious books for holy thoughts. Men live thoughtlessly, and do not take time to say a daily prayer or think with recollected minds of God and the eternal truth of His Word. They do not reflect or meditate upon what they believe. They do not reduce to practice the teachings of their faith, but live, although members of the Church, like Pagans. It is for this reason that Christians as well as heathens are lost. Jeremias has said: "With desolation is the land made desolate; because there is none that considereth in the heart." Would to God that this reproach could not be referred to Christians!

St. Teresa says: "I fear not for a soul who prays." But how few really pray while they are going through their devotions! Only too many deserve the reproach of the Lord: "This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." We either pray not at all, or fail in the manner, frequency, and perseverance of our aspirations to God, especially in time of temptation. Hence so many are powerless to resist the attacks of passion, and miserably fall.

The Church desires that her children, during Lent, should frequently and attentively hear the word of God and endeavor to profit by it. All, however, do not listen to her. But too many read their reproach and their condemnation in the words of Christ to the Jews. Christ Himself reproaches them, saying: "You hear not the words of God, because you are not of God."

There are many Christians who, throughout the year, never hear a sermon, or who, if they hear one, listen to it not as to the word of God, and as if God Himself were addressing them, but regard it merely in its human element; hence their indifference to profit by it for the life to come, and hence also their eternal destruction.

The Church wishes her children to meditate, especially during Lent, upon the passion and death of Christ, in order that the love of the cross may fill their hearts. Christ says: "He who will follow me must take up his cross daily;" and the Holy Ghost: "In your patience you shall possess your souls."

How many Christians neither love nor esteem the cross! yet they must endure the trials and afflictions of life. Their aversion to suffering only makes their burden heavier and more irksome. Murmuring against the decrees of Providence, they carry their cross as did the thief who was crucified at the left of our Lord. They forget that they can only enter the abode of the blessed by following Christ who walked before us the road of the cross to open for us the gates of heaven. Hence their weakness and faithlessness under trials and tribulations; hence, too, their eternal destruction.

The Church further desires her children during Lent to confess their sins and receive the Most Blessed Sacrament devoutly and worthily. That all do not comply with this wish, is evident from the fact, that the Church, to our great shame, has been obliged to give the following precept: "Confess your sins at least once a year to a priest duly authorized, and receive holy Communion at Easter or thereabout."

They are in the greatest danger of making it the occasion of still greater evil. People who can only be prevailed upon by the most positive order to have recourse to the Sacraments, run a great risk of receiving them unworthily. Human respect may drive them to the confessional and the holy table:, but the chances are that they return from them more wicked, more laden with guilt than before.

Were the children of the Church to receive the Sacraments frequently and worthily, the consoling words of Christ would be fulfilled in them: "He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life;" he "abideth in Me and I in him." Yet how many men neglect to receive the blessed Sacrament, or else receive it without preparation or unworthily. This is the cause of the loss of many souls among Christians. Therefore, let us live, not only during Lent, but all our days, in the spirit in which the Church observes Lent, and let us practise those pious exercises which she recommends in order that after the Good-Friday of our life here below, we may celebrate Easter in the joys of life everlasting! Amen!