Editor: Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard	N° 89 – February 2010

PREPARING FOR VATICAN III

SECOND DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNCIL

THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH

The first Constitution of the Second Vatican Council (Dei Verbum), on the Sources of the Faith, begins with these words: « Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it confidently, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: “We announce to you the eternal life that dwelt with the Father and has appeared to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you also may have fellowship with us and our fellowship may be with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn 1:2-3). »

In his intervention on 30 September 1964, Cardinal Ruffini declared this text « inept ». The Abbé de Nantes shared this judgement and denounced « the alarming sleight of hand that changed, beginning with the first word, the substance of our religion! »

In fact, the “ineptitude” consisted in the fact « that the Council took itself for the College of the Apostles, immediate witnesses to Christ and inspired by Him.

« St. John, who is improperly cited, had “seen” and “touched” the Word of Life, and he related, with the assistance of the divine inspiration that was granted to the Apostles, what he himself had heard and seen Christ say and do. But neither Paul VI, nor Cardinals Alfrink, Suenens, Marty, etc., nor the Council as a collegial whole, saw, touched or heard Christ. » (CRC n° 51, December 1971, p. 10)

On the other hand, even before being suitable for the Apostles of the Gospel, these words apply eminently to the Virgin Mary. She held Her dead Child in Her arms, the same Child whom She had carried nine months in Her womb. The Evangelists report numerous testimonies of all those who « saw » Jesus speak and act « openly » (Jn 7:26; 10:24-25; 18-20), during His public life. Before all of them, however, there was His Mother who « saw » « the eternal life » manifest itself in Her sweet and humble Child throughout His hidden and obscure life. She « treasured all these things and pondered them in Her Heart » (Lk 2:19 and 51)

She is the source of our faith!

Let us go to the source! What do we find there? Living water, which our Father termed « circumincessant charity ». Spelt with a “c”, the word expresses the perpetual movement of affection and mutual devotedness so active that it carries along every soul who desires to take part in it. It is a love derived from the Immaculate Heart of Mary and which returns there with its fruit and its harvest of the whole human family, if that were possible, or at least of all those chosen as children of Mary by God our Father and who will be saved by Her mediation.

This is why the Third Vatican Council ought to deal with the Church and the Virgin Mary in the same dogmatic Constitution as the Second Vatican Council did, with the exception that instead of relegating the Virgin Mary to the last chapter, She will be the object of the first chapters, and that the history of the Church will be evoked in the conclusion of the Constitution as a march towards the triumph of the Immaculate.

I. The Immaculate Conception

God is Love (1 Jn 4:8), and the first work of this living, efficacious love is the Immaculate Conception: a Heart, which itself is an incandescent source of « circumincessant charity », the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

« It is a Woman », who was conceived « full of grace » (Lk 1:28) before all creation, in the original purity of Her nature and of Her sex. She drew from Her spouse, Saint Joseph, the cry of admiration uttered by Adam when he opened his eyes on the companion God had given him. In Her Immaculate Conception, She is admirable and lovable to man and to God. Our hearts are made to love Her. She is perfectly and divinely beautiful.

In our times, which are the last, Her appearance cures man of all his filth, of all impurity and of all pride. She is the spotless, innocent Dove, faithful, valiant, and inaccessible to the Tempter. Between Her and sin there is an abyss. She has come from God to repair the Original Sin. Not that She is Herself the Saviour, but She is the Mother of the Saviour, conceived before all time in order to give Him flesh when the time had come.

For that reason, She is first in the history of the world and in each of our souls, in which She brings forth the life of grace.The pagans dreamed of this Virgin. Hippolytus worshipped Her in advance by dedicating his chastity to his dear goddess Artemis. Joseph too, in rejecting the advances of the wife of Putiphar (Gn 39:7-40), and David by respecting the virginity of Abishag of Shunem (1 Kg 1:1-4).

From the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed and ever Virgin Mary to the Incarnation of the Word, Son of God, the Saviour and King of the centuries, what a delightful, divine orthodromy! The inspired scribes, the authors of the Old Testament Books of Wisdom, even perceived this feminine presence with God, preparing the advent of the Son of God on earth and that of the Holy Spirit. She was created before the centuries in a mysterious pre-existence with God the Creator, a Princess of Judah from the beginning: « When the deeps existed not, I was born. » (Pr 8, 24)

« From the mouth of the Most High I came forth… The Creator of all things gave His orders. He who created Me fixed a place for My tent. He said, “Make Your dwelling in Jacob, and receive Israel as Your inheritance.” » (Si 24.8-9)

PRE-EXISTENCE.

Generally, certain footnotes in our Bibles and breviaries take care to limit this pre-existence that the Church applies to the Virgin Mary in all Her liturgical feasts to a thought, an intention of God, which is devoid of all created realisation. The Abbé de Nantes began to consider that this idea of God’s view of Her as a purely internal, ideal conception was too little for God and for Her. Yielding, however, to His good pleasure of love and glory, God would have wanted Her, the Immaculate, already to be a living soul replete with wisdom, love and praises, who would be able to participate with Him in the creation of the world, in the birth of mankind and all its generations, in the pitiful view of their sins, infirmities and miseries:

« The pre-existing soul of Mary would already be linked to all living beings beginning with Adam and Eve and charged with co-redemption. Thus from the beginning, the three divine Persons would receive praises and glories from Her most pure Voice. “I hear My beloved, My little Virgin dove… How sweet is Your voice and how charming Your countenance!” »

This is the Christian revelation concerning the Immaculate Conception: from the bosom of God our Father, the Conception of the Immaculate Virgin, which the Church celebrates on 8 December, is immense joy, grace of salvation, promise of miracles of Mercy… It is contemplation of our most cherished Mother, appearing in the Heaven of the Garden of Eden from whence the sinful woman and her husband, fallen from their state of grace and perfection, were turned out. They are so wretched while She is of supreme beauty and of a divine, and so to speak, infinite perfection.

A saving mystery that was present before human history, close to God, the Immaculate Conception is not only a creature who was chosen from among women and protected from sin, preserved from all stain. The Virgin Mary is the Person whom God conceived in His Holiness, at the beginning of the centuries. He thought of Her first, even before creating the universe, before creating Adam and Eve and the following generations; She is the first project of God, Father and Son, in their Holy Spirit and for all eternity. God the Father willed to give Her as a Spouse to His Son. A poem of St. John of the Cross, the Romancero, shows Them to us and makes us hear Their dialogue: « I wish to give You, My Son, to cherish You, a lovely bride, one who will merit to live forever by Our side »...

Of course, our Father did not impose this innovation on anyone. Is it wisdom or folly? Is it not more simply an excess of realism in the contemplation of an eternal pre-existence of the whole of creation and thus of its incomparable flower in the concord of the three divine Persons?

Well! He was not deceived by his intuition. One day, on the feast of the marriage of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, Saturday 23 January 1999 one of the brothers left this text taken from the Spiritual Writings of St. Louise de Marillac on his desk. This document has no date apart from « the vigil of the Conception of the Blessed Mary ». It may well have been written on the vigil of 8 December 1658. On that day, St. Vincent de Paul, at the request of St. Louise de Marillac, presented and ratified during the Holy Sacrifice of Mass the perpetual oblation of the « Company » of the Daughters of Charity to Mary their « unique Mother » under the title of the Immaculate Conception. It was precisely what our Father did for the Phalange on 8 December 1997 (infra ®).

« On the vigil of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, after having heard the reading from the epistle for that day » [« The Lord created Me when His purpose first unfolded, before the oldest of His works. From eternity I was consecrated, from the beginning, from the origins of the earth. » (Pr 8:22-23)], St. Louise de Marillac thought that the Blessed Virgin had come forth before creation, before Original Sin, and indeed before the appearance of any creature who might one day witness to it.

In Her coming near to God, with God, She is completely separate, holy, anterior to all that was going to be damaged and soiled by sin. By reason of Her vocation as Mother of God, which sets Her above all and everything, the Blessed Virgin exists with God, in His presence, long before Original Sin. Before the world began, She is co-eternal with God. It is not St. Thomas who would deny this, since he accepted as plausible the eternity of matter! Here, it is not a question of matter, of the body of the Blessed Virgin, but of Her being, indeed, of Her soul.

Consequently, it is the anterior Eternity of the Most Holy Trinity that raises our hope in the eternity to come and in the blessed Heaven where we are headed, while, like Noah and his children, we are the only ones to believe it and to spurn the pleasures and desolations of this life; this anterior Eternity of the Most Holy Trinity also allows us to take the measure of the real eternity of Heaven, because we see that one of our own was already witness to it, a guest and a blessed crowned Queen Prior to Her human work, Mary was already crowned Queen of the world before it was created, Queen of the Angels before they threw the demons into Hell, and Queen of men before the first couple sinned, as we explained last month, in conclusion of an article on the first dogmatic constitution of the Second Vatican Council on The Sources of the Faith (HIR 87c December 2009 ®). May we have the honour of placing this brilliant meditation at the beginning of the Gospel of the Virgin, the second dogmatic constitution of the Third Vatican Council of our hope.

CIRCUMINCESSANT CHARITY.

« I do not want to dispute with the theologians, our Father said in a final meditation, in order to know whether this presence of Mary in the ages of divine eternities is always and forever, or from the beginning of time or of days, or from the moment of the creation of the first man and woman. I am unable to discuss it learnedly, and still less do I know – as they all profess to know indubitably – whether this presence of Mary with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and Her love responding to Theirs is a simple ideal conception, a thought of God, yes, if Mary is eternally and forever a first and marvellous divine idea frozen in the unchangeable eternity of divine wisdom, where, without knowing, feeling, or living it, we and all things are also ideas… or if Mary is from the dawn of the world, before the pendulum of the great cosmic clock was set into motion, the initial big bang, if She was then already spirit and Heart, a living soul. She was already our Queen before we were authorised to exist. She is eternally seized with adoring admiration, with a purity superior to that of any of the disappointing creatures of this God, who offers Himself as Father, Bridegroom, and King to Her gaze and spiritual lips, in fullness of mutual, Trinitarian, and eternal love.

« I do not know! Who knows? I do not even know what wise men and scholars mean when they think that in God there are eternal Ideas, and the Loves for these Ideas, and the will that these loved Ideas exist, without, however, anything really existing, not even a crumb, leaving for an eternity beforehand what will exist later on in the years to come – the world, all its history, the myriads of sweetly singing angels, and the multitudes of human beings, real live men and women saints – for a blessed destiny. It leaves my mind torn between the thought of a God of before, who is eternally and necessarily solitary in His three Persons, the first and the second Persons taking delight in each another and in the third without any witness, or anyone to confide in, neither daughter, spouse, nor mother – my God, what tedium for you! – and passing by a record broad jump to the future of the world, after its end, to the thought of this same God of afterwards, eternally and graciously gratified by multitudes of angels and saints filling at last all the immense rooms and chambers of His heavenly palace!

« A half measure comes to my mind. A modest kind of intermediary between the Everything before, absolutely deprived of any Christmas gift, neither Mother, nor new-born Child in the manger, and the Everything after, absolutely overcrowded with hundreds of millions of adorers, and this intermediary is an Immaculate Idea of the divine Persons become a living, adoring, loving Virgin… so small that She casts no shadow on the solitude, the oneness, the perfection or the lofty bliss of the God of Aristotle, the pure Act… and yet in Her already there is found created such a marvel and perfection of wisdom, of thirst for adoration, of valiant love, that the entire weight, volume, number, and figure of the rest of the universe do not add the slightest increase of being, life, or virtue.

« So much is this so that, if only theologians and metaphysicians gave me permission to imagine the all wise, beautiful, hoping, and loving Immaculate Conception: Mary ever Virgin in the eternal embrace of the Father and Son pervading Her with Their Spirit of holy and creating love, it seems to me that before the world everyone was already in Her, in Her Immaculate Heart, and that afterwards, everyone will find himself there without anything really having changed in God. On the other hand, for us, there will be an unprecedented change, once and forever, born of Mary, created for Her by the divine Triad, we will have passed in this short lapse of time from nothingness to being, and from an earthly being to heavenly bliss.

« The difference is not great, and this is why I will not even attract the attention of our true philosophers and great theologians, of whom I am not even the least. The difference is only moving for the simple, the poor, the ignorant and the martyrs of life because they strongly and immensely hope to go to see Her one day in Heaven, our homeland! They, however, really have the certainty of going there only by thinking of Her that She obviously from the beginning is HERSELF in the arms of the Good God, that They know and love one another absolutely from the beginning! Finally, if Jesus exists, it was quite necessary that She had been His earthly Mother eternally and that, likewise, She exists forever, Mary Immaculate, the Mother of the Good God! Thus, She knows us well; She knows well what we are, that we were nothing but wretchedness and even nothing at all, that we have become through billions of years, by Her prayer, objects of mercy over whom She watches. Thus She knows that soon we will be transformed from misery to mercy, in glory and beatitude close to Her in the bosom of the Father, of our good heavenly Father.

« All of this is said as a kind of praise to Mary, as a poor man’s prologue to the Gospel of Mary, unpretentiously, and made as though it were the delirium lacking substance of a mind simply deranged…! »

THE MOTHER OF FAIR LOVE.

The Old Testament already outlined under the veil of figures what is revealed by the New Testament: the supernatural mystery of a God Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Most holy and most august eternal Trinity, anterior to the three persons who announce and prefigure the Holy Trinity in the first chapter of Genesis, Yahweh God, Creator, « Adam, son of God » (Lk 3:38), and Eve.

Baptism introduces us into this family of God, which sin had made us disown, giving us the power to call our Creator “Our Father”, in imitation of the Son, the Word of God, who in the beginning was with God and who was God (Jn 1:1). What do we find with Him? A third Person, proceeding from the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit who conceived the Immaculate, whom the Father wants to give to His Son as a Spouse, and to all the baptised as a Mother.

Thus, just as a child first knows his mother and only his mother, and learns from her to turn towards his father, the first person the baptised, the newborn of the divine Family, will meet is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he will cling to this Immaculate Mother with the spontaneous movement of a child. A perfect creature, inaccessible to evil, invincible to the world, the flesh, and Satan – She whose beauty, grace, tenderness, gentleness, virginity, fervour and piety move us –, is God’s companion today and for all eternity. She visibly takes the place of the invisible Spirit who indwells Her and fills Her with His seven gifts. She shows us the blessed Son of Her womb, our Head and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

To become children of Mary is to be saved through Her, light of our eyes, and to enter into a new life of circumincessant charity, free of all worldly taint. She is the Gate of Heaven, through whom one enters into the intimate life of the divine Persons, in that circuit of love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In fact, on Mary’s lips, St. John’s testimony takes on a singular force: « The Word became flesh and we saw His glory. » (Jn 1:14) Well before the Apostle, She knew that She « has fellowship with the Father. » (1 Jn 1:1-3) She does not have fellowship with the God of the Gnostics, nor of the pagans, not even of the Jews, who insist on relegating Him to a solitude without Son or Spirit, but with « the Father » who is but one God « with His Son Jesus Christ » (ibid.). In the Immaculate Heart of this Virgin Mother of God, there is a joy (Lk 1:28), the fruit of this « fellowship » that still today streams down to us, borne by these ardent lines of John the Evangelist who became Her Son by adoption. They invite us to walk « in the light » who is Jesus Christ as He Himself proclaimed during His life here below (Jn 8:12).

It is true that this mystical theology is of an extraordinary boldness. For one who applies himself to this school, the “supernatural life” and grace are no longer simply scholastic terms set beside some optional crowning of the natural order accomplished in and for oneself, as we study in the philosophy of Aristotle and of Saint Thomas. On the contrary, the natural world was only created to be the pedestal of the supernatural order: « It is insufficient to say that Jesus chose what was most beautiful in the destiny of men. That would truly be tantamount to believing that He was not yet born at the time of the world’s creation and that divine Wisdom had decided about human life without foreseeing the Incarnation. On the contrary, God put such noble laws into His creature on the day He formed him from the primitive slime in view only of the manifestation of His Beloved Son. » (G. de Nantes,Letter to My Friends no 5, Christmas 1956)

He thus created in man the need of a woman to love in order to dispose him to love the Blessed Virgin Mary with an irresistible love, and in Her the invisible Host, the Holy Spirit, God Himself, and thus through Her to overcome the Devil, escape the world, and preserve the purity of the flesh, humility of soul and fervour of heart.

II. The joyous mysteries of the Rosary

She is the “Woman” of the Apocalypse, victorious over the Devil, clothed in the majesty of the sun, which signifies the glory of God Himself, because She is His Conception, the pure work that emanates from His Glory. She is a heavenly Conception before Her earthly conception in the womb of Anne, Her mother. Mary is the daughter of the Most High. Even for Her parents, She is Mediatrix. She always existed in the bosom of God, and now, through Anne and Joachim, She is given to men.

At Her birth, « a light shone upon those who dwell in the land of shadow » (Is 9:1).

ANNUNCIATION.

Mary, the new Eve is “charmed” as she was, but by God, at the voice of the Angel saying: « Rejoice, full of grace! The Lord is with You! Behold, You shall conceive in Your womb and bear a Son, and You shall name Him Jesus. »

Jesus, the new Adam, saves humanity through the grace that emanates from the Immaculate Heart of Mary when She says: « May it be done to Me according to your word. » This acceptation opens in Mary the womb of humanity: Jesus is conceived, the Word of God who created the world is going to save it through Mary’s mediation, which is as « indispensible as is the opening of a shutter that allows light to flood a room. » (Robert Javelet, Marie, la Femme médiatrice, o. e. i. l., 1984, p. 17) The light is that of « the rising sun from on high » that Zachary extols at the birth of the Precursor John the Baptist. (Lk 1:78).

Mary’s “yes” « permits Jesus’ saving action in the Incarnation. The mediations of Jesus and Mary are simultaneous but different; in a certain way, Mary’s is prior to the Father’s initiative of love; yet, if we consider the Saviour’s conception, it is subsequent to it. Heaven knocks on Mary’s Heart; the shutter opens and God’s forgiveness enlightens and regenerates the world. » (ibid.)

VISITATION.

Not only does She give of Her body and of Her blood, but Her bridal soul vibrates in unison with that divine Bridegroom who became flesh in Her womb and who will be Her Child in the eyes of men and in the eyes of God Himself. Before He can speak and carry out the redemption of mankind, She sings of this divine work with exultation in Her Magnificat at the Visitation.

When She learned that Elizabeth, her cousin, was with child, and already « in her sixth month », Mary, who Herself was bearing Her Son, Emmanuel, God with us, with whom She is but one, hastened to the land of Judah to assist her. She entered the home of Zachary and greeted Elizabeth in the manner of the Archangel Gabriel: « Rejoice! » Like Mary, after Mary, thanks to Mary, « Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit » in turn and she completes the words of the Archangel Gabriel: « Blessed are You among women, and blessed is the fruit of Your womb. »

John the Baptist was sanctified by the mediation of Mary and Elizabeth, his mother, with whom he is but one: « At the moment the sound of Your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. »

Thus, wherever Mary is present, the grace of Her Son acts, as St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe would say in his act of consecration to the Immaculate Conception: « Truly, Your very presence attracts the graces that convert and sanctify souls, since Grace gushes from the divine Heart of Jesus upon us all, by passing through Your motherly hands. » This is why Blessed Father de Foucauld made the Visitation the inchoative mystery of a mediation that has become universal through the glorification of Mary, now present by Jesus, in Jesus, with Jesus and for Jesus to all mankind.

THE NATIVITY.

This Virgin Mother attests that Her Son was born at Bethlehem, in Judea in the city of David, shortly before the death of King Herod. At Nazareth, the Annunciation took place in secret. At Aïn Karim, Mary unveils Her secret to « all ages » by singing Her Magnificat. At Bethlehem, it is the Epiphany, the manifestation of Her secret to the shepherds first, then to the Magi: to everyone, to the poor and the rich, to the Jews and the pagans. Noel is the diminutive of Emmanuel, « God with us! »

How can this be?

The answer will be revealed, unveiled in the crib of the Redeemer, the divine Child born of the virginal womb of Mary, the Word of God beginning through Her, in Her, and for Her a fraternal, human existence with us in order to be a brother for us, a fellow traveller, a Master and, in the end, a Saviour… if, however, we receive Him from Our Lady who gives us, from Her womb, Her Son to love.

The first fruit of this contemplation is to reveal to us that our Almighty God loves smallness, poverty, fragility. In order to understand this, we must join the shepherds, sons of Adam and Eve like us, our distant brethren in humanity, in sinfulness and wretchedness of all kinds… but already sons of Abraham, children of Judah, from the tribe of David! We are delighted with admiration before the indescribable beauty of the Immaculate, transferring our adoration to the Child at Her invitation.

Close to Her stands St. Joseph, a just man, Mary’s true and chaste husband, and mysteriously father of Jesus.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, a human trinity whose relations are similar to the processions of the divine Trinity.

St. Joseph, the image of our very dear heavenly Father, is Adam restored to grace.

The Immaculate is both the Spouse and Mother of this Child who is from God, as the presence of St. Joseph assures us even before divine revelation teaches it to us.

Mary is filled with an immense love for St. Joseph, not for what one would believe, i.e., that She has the glory of Her maternity from him; on the contrary, it is because he is not its author but rather the servant, and blessed companion, that he is loved by Her.

THE HOLY DOVE.

Where is the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son?

He is Their common co-operator, He works for both of Them in the same work, but in what capacity and how?

If this work is the Incarnation of the Word, this creative Word emanated from the Father, and is effected by the Word in Himself and through Himself, but with the Immaculate in whom He comes to “nest”, to live, to make of and for Himself and of Her a Body. Thus He acts as a Bridegroom who impregnates His Spouse of Himself and for Himself, making a humanity for Himself in Her to Their common likeness.

Nevertheless, this humanity does not distinguish itself or divide itself from Him: it is He Himself made flesh and, quite obviously, by Himself and not without His Father, in a begetting in which He, the Son, is the Bridegroom, and Mary the Spouse.

She is helped, supported, sanctified, divinised… above all creatures, in order to enter into this union that is both nuptial and maternal. What a marvellous application it is of the Holy Spirit, in line with His Trinitarian work! What an intimate union of the Immaculate with each of the three Divine Persons, the unique Living God!

What was the most touching was not noticed by the theologians… Is this because it comes within the province of gynaecology? In any case, it is the “secret” of a knowledge full of love that is given to us by our Father, a worthy emulator of St. Joseph, Mary’s husband, of St. John Eudes and St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, children of Mary, and of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Her attentive knight.

Here is the secret: « the Immaculate Conception is the Daughter of God Most High, in whom Her divine Bridegroom makes for Himself the flesh of a child, which leads His Spouse to work maternally, thus becoming His Mother, without losing anything of Her virginity, while He, the Bridegroom became Her child without losing anything of His divinity.

This is the marriage of the Son of God and the Immaculate Virgin. She perfectly understood Her mission of Mother of Jesus, Mother of God the Saviour: to make for Him of Herself a Body and a Heart that He would immolate one day in order to effect the salvation of the world.

In Bethlehem, the Magi « on entering the house saw the Child with Mary His Mother ». He is but one with Her: as Mediatrix, She offers the Child to the adoration of the Magi: « they prostrated themselves and did Him homage » (Mt 3:9-10).

To this Epiphany, the Church’s liturgy associates the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, which marks the “anointing” of the King-Messiah. The voice of the Father proclaims: « This is My beloved Son; My favour rests on Him. » (Mt 3:17) On that day, however, where is the Blessed Virgin? We are going to say where further on.

THE PRESENTATION OF THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE

He was presented in the Temple (Lk 2:22-24).

The “manifestation” of the Messiah-Saviour to Anna and Simeon is another Epiphany. They personified Israel, at least « all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem ». Simeon announced to Mary that She would have to do more than to be associated with it. Because She must participate actively in it like a Spouse in the shadow of Her Bridegroom, the old man predicted that a sword of sorrow would pierce Her Heart. She would be but one Heart with this little Child who one day would have much to suffer.

« A sword will pierce Your own soul. »

It was not long before the prophecy was fulfilled. Warned in a dream of the threat that was hanging over the Child due to the jealousy of Herod, Joseph, Her husband, the guardian of Her virginity and of Her life, took Her with the Child during the night and fled to Egypt by the route of Ascalon, more rapid and sure than that of the desert. When they arrived without incident on the banks of the Nile, the Holy Family found refuge among the Jewish community residing in Egypt.

HIDDEN LIFE AT NAZARETH.

A new dream informed Joseph of Herod’s death. Emperor Augustus divided his kingdom among the three surviving sons as the dead king had recommended. Archelaus was named ethnarch (“ruler of the nation”) of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria.

Because he feared Archelaus, Joseph decided to return to Galilee, to Nazareth, his native city, which was placed under the more lenient governance of Herod Antipas.

THE SWEET ENCOUNTER.

Mary’s testimony does not end there. She relates how at twelve years of age, the Child Jesus “ran away”. After three days of anxious searching, His parents discovered Him in the Temple in the midst of the doctors. We recognise in the account of the answer that the Child Jesus made to Mary’s gentle reproach, the full doctrine that we read in the Gospel according to St. John

« Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house? »

Mary affirms that She and Her husband had not immediately understood the meaning of these words. It was not that they were unaware of the divine origin of this Child of the miracle that had been revealed to them by the Annunciations made to Mary (Lk 1:26-38) and Joseph (Mt 1:18-25). Jesus’ reply, however, inaugurated the revelations that He would make to them on the inhabitation of the Son in the bosom of the Father; and His disappearance for three days was the prophetic figure of the sorrowful passion that He would endure, of His death on the Cross, and of His resurrection on « the third day ».

« Just as the Transfiguration makes a breach in Jesus’ public life in order to reveal what He is: the Man-God with a glorious Body, though this glory is veiled and would remain so until the Resurrection, so the Teacher of the Doctors suddenly manifests Himself for a few hours in the middle of a childhood in which He could be mistaken for any of the other children of His age. Thus it was for the people of Nazareth and today, the exegetes and theologians who claim that Jesus was unaware of His mission until His Baptism, indeed until His death! » (Javelet, p. 22)

III. The Immaculate Coredemptrix

« The Hour » had come for accomplishing that work that the Father and the Son had conceived from time immemorial. One day, Jesus left Nazareth and went to ask John the Precursor to baptise Him in the Jordan. The latter bore witness as « the friend of the Bridegroom who stands there and listens, enraptured with joy at the voice of the Bridegroom. »

THE BAPTISM.

John saw the heavens open and « the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon Him » (Mt 3:16).

It is not the least of the daring ideas of Abbé de Nantes, our Father, to identify the Immaculate with this mysterious form of a dove that the Holy Spirit uses to manifest Himself at Jesus’ baptism, hovering over Him, while the voice of the Father is heard coming from Heaven.

Again in the majestic theophany of Tuy in 1929, as in all of Christian iconography this is how the Divine Paraclete appears. Why? Commentators usually dwell on the perfections of this lovable winged creature… Our Father reminds us, however, that the turtledove is more eloquently a biblical symbol of inexhaustible richness, from the Flood to the Song of Songs and in the Psalms. It signifies the Spouse of the King, of the Messiah, the God of Israel who Himself praises its beauty.

This is the source of our Father’s daring idea of supposing that the Holy Spirit’s will in assuming such an appearance is to suggest that He found in Mary His predestined sanctuary, not His incarnation but truly His inhabitation, which thus allows us to call the Blessed Virgin Mary the “Holy Dove” of Jesus Christ, the New Eve of this New Adam, His perfect companion, not divine of course, but “full of grace” and human co-operator of the Lord God Paraclete!

THE WEDDING OF CANA.

Before John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary experienced the power of the Most High when the Spirit came upon Her at the words of the Archangel Gabriel (Lk 1:35). That is why, as soon as Jesus entered upon His public life, She saw before all others His glory as the only Son of God and, anticipating « the Hour », She asked Him to manifest Himself, knowing full well that between Her and Him, there had never been slightest shadow of a disagreement (Jn 2:4).

This is Jesus’ first miracle on the threshold of His public life.

Mary was there before Her Son, and if Her Son was invited it was thanks to Her: « There was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the wedding. » (Jn 2:1)

At Cana, the mystery of the Annunciation is repeated, in which Jesus, through Her, is invited into this world. They ran short of wine. « They have no wine. » Wine is the Divine Life…

« Woman »: is the name of Eve, the enemy of the Serpent (Gn 3:15) and « mother of all the living » (Gn 3:20). Jesus will say « Woman » to His Mother when, from the summit of the Cross, He will give Her His disciples as sons in the person of John (Jn 19:26).

« My Hour has not yet come! » Set by the Father, it cannot be anticipated. Even Jesus does not know when. Yet Mary seems to have decided otherwise and, – a most extraordinary thing –, the Father obeys Her!

Fortified by the authority that God granted to this « Woman », His Mother, Mediatrix of all graces, gave Her orders without Jesus opposing them in the least: « Do whatever He tells you! » She says to the servants. He has them fill the jars without waiting for the Hour to come. We could not imagine a more perfect agreement between the Mother and the Son.

« Jesus so revealed His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. » This is the first conversion of hearts, thanks to Mary, that was brought about by the water changed into wine, a figure of the Eucharist.

Thus, Jesus enters into His public life. Mary supported Her Son’s preaching by Her silence and Her loving faith. She knew Him interiorly since She had received and nourished the Word of God in Her womb: « She does not need to listen to the words sown like seeds in the masses; She knows the living Word with the intelligence of the Heart and thanks to the community of life of a Mother with Her Child. » (Javelet, p. 25)

THE HOLY SACRIFICE.

It is « the Hour » chosen by the Father. At the foot of the Cross, we find Mary, standing courageous and silent before the pack of the enemies of Her Son. The Word alone speaks. She is one with Him, Her Heart pierced to death, according to Simeon’s prophecy. « They both offered in the same way a single sacrifice, She in the blood of Her Heart, He in the Blood of His flesh. » (Arnaud de Bonneval, xiith century)

Jesus gives His Mother the solemn name of « Woman », as He had at Cana. They officiate. The Immaculate Co-Redemptrix is, like Her Son, priest and victim, with Him and in Him, as the vision of Tuy shows us.

« Woman, behold Your Son! » Thus, at the hour of the darkness that spreads throughout the world after the death of Her Son, She is still there: Mediatrix. She is the Mother of all those who are going to receive the Baptism of water that has gushed from Her Son’s pierced Heart and from the Immaculate Heart of Mary jointly, inseparably, pierced by the sword of compassion.

While « the Child of the Woman was taken straight up to God and to His throne » (Ap 12:5), « victorious » (Ap 12:10), the Church, conceived on the tragic bed of the Cross, was born at Pentecost, brought forth by Mary (Ac 1:14), Mother and not only “model” of the Church, Mediatrix between Christ and the souls that the Church receives the power to engender sacramentally by the ministry of the hierarchy, drawing upon the emanations of divine love in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

IV. The Holy Catholic Church

In his Book of Accusation against the CCC, the Abbé de Nantes recalled that the Church of the Counter-Reformation defined herself as a perfect, visible, and hierarchical society, founded by Jesus Christ, whose members all adhered to the same doctrine and submitted to the same Roman authority, in the hope of gaining eternal life through the grace of the sacraments. Pope Pius XII completed this canonical definition with this other profoundly dogmatic, allegorical, and spiritual definition, that of the “Mystical Body of Christ”. This took place on 29 June 1943 and was applauded throughout the world. The Holy Spirit was the “uncreated Soul” of this social Body and its hierarchy was the “created soul”, wholly dependent on Christ, its Founder and supreme Head.

As for the idea of the “People of God”, rehabilitated by Fr. Clérissac, it reminded the members of the Church that, since they are both soul and body, they should sanctify their communities – their political States and nations – and transform them into miniature Christendoms. By 1950 this entire ecclesiology had reached a rare degree of perfection, as is seen in the monumental work of Cardinal Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate.

Chapter I
THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST

« What is it? the Abbé de Nantes wrote. It is this visible and historical society that is called the Roman Catholic Church. It is a question of her and her alone, because she alone is God’s plan, the Arc of salvation of persons and the guarantee of the order and prosperity of temporal societies that are blessed by God. The Third Vatican Council will affirm this singularity and this excellence of the Church by refusing to consider her as a “religious society” among others. She is unique. This is a dogma of the Faith.

« This is also, however, a rational conviction that results from the consideration of her four incomparable Marks or Perfections: she is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Thus she is a “Sign raised up among the nations”, a permanent miracle that invites and leads to faith in her supernatural mystery.

« What then is the Church? This society is a human organism or created instrument by means of which God calls all men to salvation and gives them, if they adhere to her through faith, justification and grace for eternal life. Thus, the Church is the means and the source of the true religion, the union of men with the One God. The Church is a Mother who engenders the sons of Adam, through a new birth, to restored grace. She is a family in which divine life is transmitted, beginning with Christ, from generation to generation.

« She is therefore not a people of equals, an aggregation of individuals gathered together by some invisible Spirit: she is a historical and hierarchical society in which the heritage of the true religion is transmitted by precise sacramental actions. She is not a “Person in the literal sense”, as Maritain claimed in his last book on “The Person of the Church and her Personnel” (p. 37), which is stupid. No one pointed out this contradiction of six hundred million people who are but one! That shows the level of stupidity to which conciliar raving has made Christian intelligence fall. She is a community of persons, anterior to them, but communicating herself to them through faith and Baptism.

« What is this Mystery? The Church is like a pyramid of which the faithful members form the base and the hierarchy the upper levels, and the summit of which is lost in the luminous Cloud where the Divinity sits enthroned. The Church is human and divine. How is this? Revelation alone makes it known to us in two connected and complementary truths.

« 1. The Church is a Body of which Christ is the Head. Dependent upon the Mystery of the Incarnation, in which the Word of God became flesh, the Mystery of the Church is that of a human society of which the Son of God is the human founder and remains the Sovereign Head always living and glorious. He, in fact, governs it Himself with the assistance of a hierarchy that He founded and equipped with His own divine Powers and His rights. It is through Himself, then through His Apostles and through their successors that Christ creates and organises His Church as a social, living, life-giving, holy and perfect Body. The hierarchy is the efficient cause, the created, human, historical and visible cause.

« 2. The Church is a Body of which the Holy Spirit is the soul. Nevertheless, the union of the human Church with her divine Head is not physical, as in the Incarnation, but moral. It supposes in the Church a holy will, a divine energy, a principle of fidelity that keeps her indefectibly united to her Head. This “uncreated Soul” of the Church is the Person of the Holy Spirit, who was sent to her on Pentecost by the Father and the Son. The Paraclete, the divine Soul of this unique and particular Body, has a profound affinity with this Church, the Catholic Church alone. Even when He calls all men to the divine Life, it is in subordination to and in view of His one Church. This work of the Holy Spirit is the “formal cause” or the “immanent principle of organisation” of this social Body of which Christ is the Head: that is to say, His Energy descends and communicates itself hierarchically from the Head to the members according to the degrees of the powers established by Christ. Even where the Holy Spirit acts in complete liberty by the gift of “charisms”, it is neither in contradiction to nor separate from the hierarchical institution and its apostolic discipline.

« The Mystery of the Church is in this mutual penetration of a particular type, incomprehensible to reason and inaccessible not only to sensible but to spiritual experience, of the human and the divine. Analogous but inferior to the hypostatic union, this union leaves men with their created personalities and their weakened liberty, while guaranteeing to their society as such a set of purely supernatural perfections: indefectibility, infallibility, holiness, etc. »

Chapter II
THE SACRED HIERARCHY

« “The Church of Christ is not a society of equals, in which all the faithful would enjoy the same rights. This is not only because, among the faithful, some are clerics and others are laymen, but above all because in the Church there is a Power that God instituted to sanctify, teach and govern, which some have received and not others.” » (Projet Vatican I, Dumeige, 465)

« Against “the spirit” of Vatican II, it must be proclaimed that the work of God is carried out through the Priesthood. The Apostles, and eminently their Head, were Christ continued and communicated, and then the Pope and the Bishops, heirs to a part of their Powers. Concerning this hierarchy, the Council ought to specify certain distinctions that have been challenged since Vatican II:

« 1. The distinction between Peter and the other Apostles or their successors. The Vicar of Christ alone is Head of the entire Church and he is also the first and principal member of the Episcopal Body. So much is this the case that this Body cannot be evoked without the Successor of Peter and still less against him, for it only exists in the active presence of this eminent Member who is the Sovereign Head.

« 2. The distinction between the Apostolic College and the Episcopal Body. The latter has not inherited all the privileges that were conferred on the Twelve for the founding of the Church: personal holiness, infallible inspiration, the gift of miracles, powers over the universal Church. One of the causes of the present disorder is that the Pope and the bishops overestimate their powers, which they imagine to be unbounded. They think that they are indefectible and that they are regents of the universal Church whose role is to found the Church anew and to rule her as the fancy takes them, even though they have only the powers to govern her faithfully.

« 3. The distinction between the personal exercise of hierarchical powers and their collegial exercise will be easy to establish after the unbelievable confusions of Vatican II. In fact, in the Church, there are only personal powers, exercised by each minister, Pope or bishop, in a free and responsible manner. No ecclesiastical power is specifically collegial. Down with Collegiality, this diabolical monster aimed at destroying the Catholic hierarchy to the profit of the mafias hostile to God!

« The solemn Magisterium of ecumenical councils is itself an eminently personal exercise of this power. Undoubtedly the mode of determination of its matter is collegial: it can be brought out by collective procedures. The form of the decision is none the less personal: by the personal adhesion of the Pope, without which there is no authentic decision, and by the inner adhesion of each and all, (under pain of excommunication), who recognise therein their own Faith. The “moral person” of the College does not substitute itself for the personal liberty of its members; it manifests their unanimity prior to the votes.

« This is valid only in the case of constraining infallible decisions; as for every fluctuating, “pastoral” teaching, where the collegial manner exploits the nonexistent participation and responsibility of each member, there is no real decision. To examine these false unanimities termed “collegial” is to discover the total inanity of Vatican II.

« As for the human, social situation of those whom the Church invests with these divine Powers, it is a matter for the Constitution on the Priesthood.

Chapter III
THE FAITHFUL PEOPLE

« Despite the fact that the members of the hierarchy are taken from among the people, which is obvious, their consecration establishes them above it for the exercise of their ministry. The Church is composed of both groups without them being mutually opposed. Nevertheless, there is a distinction between the hierarchy and the faithful: the former is divine in its functions; the latter has the duty of striving towards holiness through its works.

« This faithful people is normally constituted by the sacramental gift of the divine life to all men of good will who are incorporated into the Church through faith.

« Here the Council ought to define the visible, legal, and the invisible or mystical characteristics of belonging to the Church, for on this point, Vatican II introduced too much disorder, knocking down the walls of the City in order to open it rashly to everyone, and building prisons in order to lock up arbitrarily its own nonconformist subjects.

« A different Constitution will express what is essential concerning the active “passivity” of the faithful, the free rein left to their initiative through charismas, the infinite perfection that the primacy of charity offers them.

Chapter IV
THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD

« Contrary to the present orientation, which is alien to the Gospel, which puts the Church at the service of the World, Vatican III will say that the Church is at the one and only service of God through Christ and in His Spirit. Thus she leaves outside herself everything in the world that is doomed to oblivion, the “mundanas varietates”, the simple web of human history. She will seek, adopt and consecrate only that which is worthy of immortality: souls, all souls, their human bonds, all the perfections of the supernatural being: in short, what constitutes here below the Communion of Saints.

« Because she works for the Kingdom of God, however, she also obtains from her Lord the rest in addition: under her influence a superior human society is formed, morally more perfect and historically blessed by God: Christendom. The Council will have to deal at length with religion and politics in its second session.

WHILE WAITING FOR VATICAN III...

« … Or rather without waiting! We, members of the faithful, we have a claim to make known to our Pastors. Canon Law is based on Catholic theology, both of which are inalienable. There is a doctrine revealed by God, which is irreformable. This doctrine shows where the Church is, what she is, what the conditions are for entering and remaining in her. These conditions are visible, legal: profession of faith, Sacraments received, discipline observed. The result is a dignity, a right, a freedom of the members of the holy people that the hierarchy must recognise and respect. Even though the Church is a supreme communion of charity, a mystical reality, she is firstly and radically a visible and legal society.

« Before attributing or denying to us an authentic communication of mystical or evangelical graces, the hierarchy has the social duty of recognising the faithful people in the entire extent of their legal existence, and it has the strict duty of exercising their irreplaceable powers over this whole visible people. It must teach them by professing the true Faith and by condemning and hunting out every error. It must sanctify them by validly administering the Sacraments to all those who have the right to them and by proscribing all invalid or sacrilegious exercise of the sacred ministry. It must govern the people according to the divine and ecclesiastical laws for the sole divine good of each and everyone, and fight all abuse of power, every injustice and all disorder within itself.

« We demand this even before Vatican III, and here and now we want an end put to the sacrilegious twofold inversion whereby the best Christians, according to the “allegedly missionary” reformist hierarchy are those from outside, and the worst those from inside. Correlatively, we want an end to the impious idea according to which the true life, true Christian worship is that which takes place in the secular world, and conversely is false that which is practiced in our churches in the worship and Sacraments that were established from the beginning and received by the faithful.

« What is legally inside must not be claimed to be mystically outside, and what is visibly outside must not be considered invisibly better than what is inside. The Reform of Vatican II reversed the order of the Mystery. The Counter-Reformation, even before Vatican III must restore it. There is nothing better than to belong faithfully to the Holy Roman Catholic Church our Mother. » CRC n° 52, January 1972, pp. 8-9)

V. The Immaculate Triumphant

Her pre-existence in God in the glory of a divine plan and the fulfilment of this plan on earth were indeed followed by Her existence as Queen of Heaven, in the glory of the fulfilment of this plan: « A great sign appeared in the sky… a Woman! Adorned with the sun, with the moon under Her feet, and on Her head a crown of twelve stars. » (Ap 12:1)

The Moon is the symbol of Mary who receives Her light from the sun, which is God. The sublunary world is that of corruptibility. The moon under Mary’s feet signifies Her immortal purity, which is communicable to the lower world. The sun is the radiance of the glory of Her Immaculate Conception. She reigns over the Apostles themselves, signified by the twelve stars.

« She is with child and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth! » in punishment for Original Sin. Both Mary and Jesus suffer not for Their own sin but for the sins of men that They alone can expiate because They alone are perfectly innocent. As Mediatrix of all graces, Mary gives birth in expiatory suffering.

The rest of St. John’s vision describes the desperate raging fury of the flame-red Dragon with heads crowned with diadems, the spirit of darkness incarnated in all the evil powers of the earth. One day, the new Eve, Mary, Mother of God, will crush him after a fierce battle. The Dragon’s convulsions are as fearsome as they are vain: « His days are numbered! » Satan is the Accuser, Mary, the Advocate.

Since the Accuser did not get hold of Mary’s first born Son, who is with the Father, he wages war on Her and Her other children. She is the Mother of Mercy who redescends to earth to triumph over Satan by the devotion that men have for Her who gave them the Redeemer and who immolated Herself with Him in order for these words to be fulfilled: « All ages shall call Me blessed. » (Lk 1:48)

MARIAN ORTHODROMY.

Her Immaculate Heart, Temple of the Holy Spirit, has no other desire than to bring forth billions and billions of souls to the life of grace in order that each Christian soul, each religious community, each Christian nation and the Church first and foremost may be, following Her example, the faithful spouse of the most marvellous Bridegroom.

This joy of a universal maternity, however, will not take place without contradiction… The triumph is promised to the children of Mary, but we are forewarned that in the last times of the world “it will be difficult”. The Demon will obtain as it were an increase in power. It will be the hour of the ultimate combat between Satan and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the ultimate assault of Satan surrounded by so many ferocious beasts, ready to move in for the kill against the last pockets of Christendom where the Catholic faith and religion subsist.

What gives us the conviction that we have entered the last times is the unleashing of Hell combined with the intervention of the Blessed Virgin. Of course, apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary abound throughout the history of the Church… If we were to represent them as luminous points on a map of the world, we would see the surface of the earth shine forth with a thousand and one acts of the goodness of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who likes to take Her delights among the children of men. Thus the Immaculate Conception reveals to us the richness of the vocation of the Co-Redemptrix. She is not only the refuge of sinners, the mother who cures the sick and dispels epidemics… As Spouse of the Redeemer, King of kings and Lord of lords, She is also the patroness and queen of Christian nations; foundress of religious orders; creator of empires; a war leader more powerful than an army in battle array… She is victorious over heresies throughout the whole world, since the Council of Ephesus in 431, which proclaimed Her Mother of God.

ESCHATOLOGY: FROM TEPEYAC TO THE RUE DU BAC.

The “last times” began with a man of the Devil, Luther, entering the lists. The German monk did not rise up against Rome to remedy the scandals of his time. He was the bearer of a new Gospel that he had invented in order to escape from his interior drama as a lecherous monk: Sin boldly, but believe still more boldly, he used to say, for faith alone saves without works… Excommunicated in 1520, he rebelled, assumed the right to interpret Holy Scripture through “free judgement”… As a result, he denied the Real Presence and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; he condemned monastic vows and the celibacy of priests. After having incited the German peasants to revolt, he encouraged the princes to repression, and handed over to them all the wealth stolen from the Church.

The lure of gain, immorality, emancipation of the princes and kings with respect to the superior authority of the Church, sufficed to propel the Scandinavian nations and England into the camp of the Reformation. In Switzerland, it was Calvin who elaborated a new democratic and plutocratic Christianity: this heartless bourgeois who predestined souls to Hell and did not fear to burn his rivals, would become the father of the “believers” of the Anglo-Saxon world, including the Anglicans that Benedict XVI welcomes today into the Church.

Except for Spain and Portugal, all the countries of Christendom would experience bloody wars of religion. « From then onwards, our Father wrote, Christ’s spiritual work, the Church, and the Church’s temporal work, Roman Christendom, with its dead branch Eastern Christendom, are no longer surrounded by barbarians and Muslims, to be conquered or liberated. Christendom is now pressed on all sides by Christians who have now become enemies, and who can only find peace in their religion, and justification for their schism, at the cost of both the Church’s and Christendom’s total destruction. » (Prelude to apostasy, CCR n° 69 p. 1)

The Church would nevertheless recover thanks to the Council of Trent and to the vigorous impetus given to it by Pope St. Pius V and, in his wake, the saints of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century.

What did the Blessed Virgin do during this very critical period? She did not remain inactive. In 1531, she appeared to a poor Indian, « the littlest », the most despised of all, Juan Diego. If the beautiful face of the Virgin is radiant with a wholly maternal goodness, She is also a Queen who comes to bless and to found a new empire by laying down, with an almost casual air, the rights and duties of each of Her subjects.

By appearing on Tepeyac, She crushed the head of the Serpent who terrorised these poor Indian populations by maintaining them in such a state of bestial mindlessness that the Spanish wondered whether these people had a soul. The Blessed Virgin answered this question, and this contempt by showing them all of Her maternal tenderness. From then on, it was no longer a question of the horrible serpent-headed idols. The Virgin Mary became forever the Madrecita de los Mexicanos, the little Mother of the Mexicans… to whom She left Her miraculous image on the tilma of Juan Diego.

By entrusting to this lowly Indian the secret of Her name: « I am the Ever Virgin Mary of Guadalupe », She united this people of Indians and the few Spaniards who lived with them into a single national and religious identity. Guadalupe of Estradamure was the favourite Marian devotion of the Catholic Kings; it was She who presided over the reconquista against the Moors. The Guadalupana thus snatched the Indians from their pagan, diabolical traditions and incorporated them into valorous Catholic Spain in its most conquering expression… At the same time, She protected the Spanish colonists against a spirit of independence by informing them that their loyalty to the Spain of all time would be the vital link that would earn them the blessings of Heaven…

Through this apparition, the Immaculate legitimated and established forever for the Church and the Christian nations the criteria for the purest evangelisation. It consists of three converging works, which have been terribly calumniated and betrayed by revolutionaries such as the liberal Catholics: Mission, Colonisation and Crusade.

In 1571, when Saint Pope Pius V mobilised the Christian princes against the Turks, the Spanish hastened to enthrone on the flagship of the Christian forces a reproduction of Our Lady of Guadalupe that they had touched to the miraculous tilma. Thus it was that the Immaculate Conception found Herself in the thick of the Battle of Lepanto. The evening of the battle, the Guadalupana, more powerful than an army in battle array, had once again vanquished the Muslim…

If the Turks had returned home only for a while, the Protestants assailed Christendom and took advantage of rivalries between Catholic princes to wage its war against the Church. In order to vanquish these proud Prussian, English and Dutch who were on their way to world domination, the Sacred Heart intervened in our history of France. The Good God miraculously gave a son to King Louis XIII who had waged a courageous war against the Protestants and consecrated his kingdom to the Blessed Virgin. In 1689, the Sacred Heart proposed to conclude a pact with this heir, filled with the gifts of grace and of nature:

« He wished to reign in his palace, to be painted on his standards and engraved on his arms to make them victorious over all his enemies, prostrating their proud and arrogant heads before his feet, in order to make him triumphant over all the enemies of the Holy Church. »

This demand, which was so modest, ought to have met with the enthusiastic adherence of the Most Christian King. St. Louis would not have hesitated! Louis XIV, however, was infatuated with his beauty as “Sun King”, and he spurned the incomparable glory that God would have provided him if he had consented to being His new King David.

He would pay dearly for this refusal. France and the Church would too, for modern history would take the fatal turn of which we are aware, that of an irresistible increase in the power of the forces of Antichrist. In 1717, Freemasonry was founded. Under the influence of this secret society that won over the elites, the decadence of the Catholic countries was programmed; from 1789 to 1830, the Revolution prevailed throughout the whole world, despite some fine resistance.

The « Turks » no longer threaten Christianity on the sea or under the walls of Constantinople or Vienna. The « Turks », i.e., Modernists and Progressivists, are in the City, in Rome, in the Holy of Holies from which they dominate over the Church throughout the whole earth.

Deprived of her temporal support, the Church throughout the nineteenth century would be subject to their assaults. The Devil sensed that this Church was wavering, above all in the person of the successors of Peter… She was, however, strengthened by the martyrs of the Revolution and they are legion… They acquired a veritable war chest, infinite merits, with which the Church would do more than just defend herself. She had never been so beautiful, our Father exclaimed: « Ascetic, mystical, popular, teaching, charitable, missionary, desecrated from without and deceived, already betrayed from within » she would nevertheless reconquer the world through the combined efforts of the Immaculate, three holy Pontiffs and a whole host of saints.

In 1832 and again in 1834, Pope Gregory XVI vigorously condemned the Revolution and the liberal Catholics who wanted to rally to it. His successor, Pius IX, had first thought that certain reforms could be accepted, more liberties, etc., but after the assassination of Rossi, his Prime Minister, he understood that he was dealing with the powers of Hell unleashed. After a momentary exile in Gaeta, he returned to Rome and, from his pulpit of Truth, ex cathedra, he defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854), condemned modern errors by the Syllabus (1864), and convened a Council in which was promulgated the dogma of Pontifical Infallibility. When the troops of the Freemasonic king of Piedmont invaded Rome in 1870 it was too late… despite his apparent triumph, the Revolution had been defeated forever.

During this time the Virgin Mary established Herself as regent of France and perpetual help of the Holy Father. In 1830, when the revolution had just triumphed over the last of the Most Christian Kings in Paris, St. Catherine Labouré understood the supernatural significance of this event in a vision: It is Jesus, true King of France who is stripped of His royal garb. Perhaps He no longer reigns but He has not abdicated.

He makes way for the Immaculate who appeared in the centre of Paris, at the Rue du Bac. Her Miraculous Medal imposes the effigy of the Immaculate crushing the head of the Serpent on the whole world. She is almighty; She works prodigious miracles. Above all She brings about spectacular conversions such as that of the Jew Ratisbonne, by the apparition of 20 January 1842, which was due precisely to the wearing of the Miraculous Medal, a prelude to the conversion of the Jews…

On 3 December 1836, Fr. des Genettes, Parish Priest of Our Lady of Victories, heard a voice say to him: « Consecrate your parish to the most holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary »; he obeyed and his parish was converted.

In 1846, the most hardened sinners converted when they saw Our Lady of La Salette weep, showing Herself as a mother who had been beaten by her children…: « For so long have I suffered for you, you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken for you. »

In 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared in Lourdes and confirmed the infallible dogma that Blessed Pius IX had promulgated by revealing Her identity: « I am the Immaculate Conception. » The Virgin of Lourdes cured the sick, converted sinners, confounded anticlericals as well as liberals, “bad Catholics” and, with a frown, sent the Devil and his armies to the depths of Hell.

On 17 January 1871, She came back to Pontmain, as powerful as an army in battle array, in order to stop the Protestant Prussians. Her only weapon was Her crucified Jesus all bleeding, whom She offers in sacrifice to the Father, inviting us with a heartrending insistence to join Her in praying with Her:

« But pray My children. God will hear you in a little while. My Son allows Himself to be touched. »

On 13 May 1883, She delivered little Thérèse from Satan’s assaults, precisely by the prayer addressed to Her Immaculate Heart at the sanctuary of Our Lady of Victories. During the novena of Masses that Monsieur Martin had requested, the « ravishing smile of the Blessed Virgin » cured Thérèse.

This smile was a sign of the accession of St. Pius X, providentially elected Pope after the disastrous reign of Leo XIII; from his first encyclical, Pius X denounced the cult of man and then condemned Modernism and Christian democracy. His successor Benedict XV, however, resumed the liberal politics of Leo XIII.

In the light of this weakness, Freemasonry accentuated its pressure and multiplied, even in Rome, blasphemous demonstrations to shouts of: The Devil will reign at the Vatican; the Pope will be his Swiss guard…

The Devil already crowed over his victory, not without reason.

The Blessed Virgin knows it. She even knows that it was a matter of a few generations. That is why Heaven mobilised, headed by the three Divine Persons, St. Michael and his angels, the Immaculate and St. Joseph… At Fatima they, as it were, descended to earth in order to enlist us in the Crusade of the last times. God wishes to establish in the entire world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in order to save souls from Hell, and to deliver the Church from Satan’s claws. The visions of Pontevedra and Tuy reveal to us that the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary are once again labouring, in a labour of love that they ask us to console… Their triumph is assured, unconditional, but they ask us to share, Heart to heart with them, this ultimate passion in order to share in its saving merit and glory by assisting the salvation of the greatest number of souls possible.

Such is the Gospel of Fatima, the renewal of the Covenant as our Father liked to say, which has on its horizon the steep mountain of the Third Secret, the Calvary where every soul is called to be heart to heart with the Heart of the Immaculate Co-Redemptrix at the foot of the Cross, offering to the Father the sacrifice of Her Son in order for Grace and Mercy to pour out over the world. The Virgin Mary invites us to this offertory at each Mass, such as the vision of Tuy represents Her to us offering Her Jesus and asking us:

« Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to put up with all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners? »

Echoing this moving request, we also hear that of Her divine Bridegroom more pressing, imperious:

« Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment, without anyone making an act of reparation to remove them... »

What we must perceive in the immense danger that this apostate world incurs is the urgency of having recourse to the Immaculate Heart of this divine Mother for the salvation of all, of the earthly as well as of the eternal. It depends on our obedience and devotion to Her Immaculate Heart whether Russia converts or whether she spreads her errors throughout the world and yes, that nations will be annihilated (France is not excluded!), that the good will be martyred, that the Church and the Holy Father will be harshly persecuted.

Consequently, we must have recourse to Our Lady of Fatima and go along the paths that She indicates to us: this Blessed Virgin Herself in Her immaculate Glory, the work of the divine Wisdom and Mercy of our God, is the way that will lead us to God, by means of the practices of the First Saturdays of the month through which the soul cleanses itself at the fountain of Grace and Mercy and nourishes itself on the Word made flesh. Yet in order to bring the sons of Adam back to divine truth, it is necessary for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be carried out by the Roman Pontiff, vicar of Christ on earth, and by the college of the successors of the Apostles in communion with him, obeying his command.

Thus will be made manifest the most certain title that it would be proper for the Third Vatican Council to recognise solemnly to the Mother of God: Mediatrix of all graces. In this way reparation will be made for the offences that are still committed against Her in our times – and more than ever! They are occurring ninety years after Her apparitions, forty-five years after the Second Vatican Council, and in accordance with the Second Vatican Council, in the spirit of this baneful Council: deliberate acts of outrage and indifference in accordance with the Constitution on the Liturgy, which abolished Her feasts, with the Constitution on the Church, which relegated Her to the last chapter, with the decree on Ecumenism, which effaced Catholic devotion to Her Immaculate Heart in order not to antagonise the Protestants, with the Declaration on Religious Freedom that excluded any “consecration” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and even reciting the Rosary was “forgotten”, etc.

The devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that « God wishes to establish » on earth as in Heaven, consists in closely associating the Blessed Virgin Mary to God in all prayer. That leads to seeking to penetrate more deeply Her glory, Her incomparable perfections and virtues, up to the most secret of Her intimate bonds of graces with the three divine Persons by whom She is cherished above all creatures.

We will only come out unscathed from all apostasy and despair, from all spiritual deviations and all worldly failings, if we have recourse to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a devotion that can be full of love only in an almost infinite admiration of this “Woman” who is blessed amongst all others, the Virgin of Fatima to whom God wants to entrust the work of the salvation of the world in the space of the ten years to come, for Their one and only glory, His and Hers, forming but one Heart.

Brother Bruno of Jesus.

ST. LOUISE DE MARILLAC’S DREAM AND A PERSONAL THOUGHT OF HERS ON THE CONCEPTION OF THE IMMACULATE

On the vigil of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, after having heard the reading from the epistle for that day, I had a dream in which I saw a great darkness arise in the middle of the day. It seemed small at first and was followed by a very dark night that astonished and terrified everyone. I only felt submission to the divine Justice. Once the darkness had passed, I saw the daylight return, and in a certain very elevated place in the sky I saw what seemed to be a figure of Her, who represents the Transfiguration for us; it seemed to me to be the figure of a woman.

I was nevertheless seized with a great astonishment that carried me into gratitude towards God, to the point that my body suffered from it; and awakening at that point, I continued to suffer for some while longer. Unlike the ordinary run of my dreams, that image has always remained in my mind, inspiring me to believe that this initial grace bestowed upon the Virgin marked the commencement of the light that the Son of God was to bestow upon the world.

In my meditation on the subject of the epistle I noticed how Holy Church attributed Her being to the Blessed Virgin before the creation of the world. My mind acquiesced in this idea, and it occurred to me that not only had She been in the mind of God from all eternity through His foreknowledge, but that She had been so to a greater degree than any other creature on account of the dignity that God destined Her for as the Mother of His Son. It [Her being] knew that it was willed before the creation of all the earthly things capable of witnessing to the sin of our fathers. God wished to make a specific act of His will in order to create the soul of the Blessed Virgin, and this may also have been an effective act. I submit such thinking entirely to Holy Church, only making use of it the better to honour the Blessed Virgin and as a means of renewing our Society’s general dependence on Her, being Her most wretched daughters who also regard Her as our most worthy and unique Mother.

May Jesus and Mary be loved!

Adore the Virgin whom God chose to redeem before He created Her, and lay before Her the state of your conscience. Ask Her that She may obtain the amendment of your life and deliverance from your most pressing necessities, as well as a greater love for Her Son and a stronger relationship with His humanised divinity.

(Écrits spirituels de Louise de Marillac, ed. 1983, p. 730 ; cf. CCR n° 316, p. 31)

A PROPHETIC DREAM

« The epistle for that day » was the prosopopoeia of Wisdom as found in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 8, as applied to the Virgin Mary by the liturgy for this feast of Her Conception.

The saint dreamed about this text, which she had heard read before lying down and going to sleep. Her dream unfolds in several stages. First of all she saw an unusual « darkness in the middle of the day », like the beginning of an eclipse, which gradually grew into « a very dark night », like a total eclipse. There was astonishment throughout « the whole world »: people had never seen such a blackness in the middle of the day! There was general terror, as always happens with animals during an eclipse. In this case, however, the darkness is a spiritual one.

The saint, for her part, experienced a disposition of inner submission « to divine Justice ». This dream comes from God, like a vision in the Apocalypse, a warning of a well-deserved chastisement. Submission: may His will be done!

Another tableau succeeds the first, with a coherence that clearly shows the supernatural origin of this dream. As with the end of an eclipse, the brightness of the day returned, and there appeared in a « very elevated »sky, which is the dwelling place of God (2 Co 12:2; Ep 4:10), « what seemed to be a figure of Her, who represents the Transfiguration for us ». There is no terror this time, simply surprise, « great astonishment », and thanksgiving, accompanied by physical suffering that made her wake up. So it was with the disciples who witnessed the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Thabor, a sign that heralded His coming glorification, but only at the price of suffering (Mt 17:12).

« Unlike the ordinary run » of dreams that dissipate on contact with reality, this one stamped on her mind the identity of the « figure of a woman » seen in the dream and the interpretation of Her Transfiguration as « the commencement of the light that the Son of God was to bestow upon the world ».

THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

The Transfiguration of the Mother heralds that of the Son with an anteriority that brings the saint’s meditation back to the « epistle » of the day, the prosopopoeia of Wisdom, where this anteriority is characterised by its relation to the whole of creation. The application that the Church makes of this to the Blessed Virgin and the vision of the dream itself combine to impose the idea of the pre-existence of the Blessed Virgin, an idea formulated by the holy sister with an admirable precision. She proceeds at a good pace along this path, so narrow, so elevated... How can we resist following her as she pushes back the barriers of abstract scholastic theories?

There is nothing to distinguish the Virgin from other creatures in the mind of God if She is only there through the « foreknowledge » by which God, in His eternal present, knows everything on earth, in Heaven and in Hell. Holy Church, however, goes further: she applies to the Blessed Virgin the words « Her being from before the Creation of the world ». What does that mean? To understand it, one need only follow the liturgy for the feasts of the Blessed Virgin and repeat the inspired texts: « The Lord created Me when His purpose first unfolded, before the oldest of His works. » (Pr 8:22) The Latin says possedit me, « possessed Me », but the Hebrew verb qanani is translated by the Greek as « created Me ». Furthermore, the Book of Ecclesiasticus clearly states that « before all other things Wisdom was created » (Si 1:4). It is this personified Wisdom that the liturgy so often identifies with the Blessed Virgin, proclaiming: « He who created Me fixed a place for My tent. He said, “Make Your dwelling in Jacob, and receive Israel as Your inheritance.” From eternity, in the beginning, He created Me, and for eternity I shall remain. » (Si 24:8-9) In the Proper of the Mass for 8 December, the reading, taken from the Book of Proverbs, continues: « From eternity I was anointed, from the beginning, before the origin of the earth. » (Pr 8:23) The Hebrew verb nâsak is the same as that found in Psalm 2, referring to the Messiah: « It is I who have anointed My king on Zion, My holy mountain. » (Ps 2:6)

« When the deeps existed not, I was already born (et ego jam concepta eram). » (Pr 8.24) The same Hebrew word hûl reappears in the following verse: « When there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains were implanted, before the hills, I was born (ego parturiebar). » (Pr 8:25)

Applied to the « being » of the Blessed Virgin, this text read in Latin by St. Louise expresses first Her « conception » (et ego jam concepta eram) and then Her birth (ego parturiebar). It was St. Jerome who introduced this nuance, involving two different uses of the same Hebrew verb.

It was to all of this that the mind of the holy sister « acquiesced » with an extraordinary vigour: « it occurred to me that not only had She been in the mind of God from all eternity through His foreknowledge, but that She had been so to a greater degree than any other creature on account of the dignity that God destined Her for as the Mother of His Son ». Therefore, it is not so much by a temporal anteriority that She takes precedence over all other creatures, but by the place She holds in the mind of God. All the rest of creation taken together is as nothing when compared with the Virgin Mary chosen by God to be the Mother of His Son. Her dignity is the expression of this vocation, of this role She is going to play, as known by God, and known by Her also.

« It knew… » What is “it”? Her « being »: a word chosen from amongst a thousand with a wonderful metaphysical aptness to designate Her « being » in its concrete existence, so perfect that it was already existent and substantial. She knew that She was willed « before the creation of any earthly thing capable of witnessing to the sin of our fathers ». The Virgin Mary is the Immaculate Conception because She came forth before creation, before the appearance of Original Sin, and indeed before the appearance of any creature that could one day be a witness to it. She issued from God quite separately from – and consequently before – all that was going to be damaged and soiled by sin.

« God wished to make a specific act of His will in order to create the soul of the Blessed Virgin »: From the moment that God decided to bring Her into existence, He saw Her, He “conceived” Her, and He gave Her a being worthy of One who was to be the Mother of God. She came into being in a wholly unique way, Her soul being created even before there was question of Her body.

« This may also have been an effective act. » It was truly a special divine act that brought the soul of the Virgin Mary into existence before anything should appear, be it angel or man, heaven or earth. It was all due to Her dignity, which sets Her above all and everything. Thus, the Virgin Mary is with God, existentially, well before Original Sin. Before the world began, She is co-eternal with God. Saint Thomas himself could not deny this, since, basing himself on Aristotle, he accepted the metaphysical plausibility of the eternity of matter!

« I submit such thoughts entirely to Holy Church »: admirable reserve to crown an extraordinary boldness! She displays not the least indiscreet curiosity or vanity… only the desire to « better honour the Blessed Virgin », with a sublime tenderness and devotion towards our Mother who is more divine than human, as it were infinite by participation. She exists in infinite love, She is the freedom of infinite love from all eternity, because She has always existed and always will exist. Perhaps some day people will follow St. Louise de Marillac and be bold enough to say such things.

« And to renew our dependence on Her », according to the terms set forth in the “thought” that follows, as an expression of the consecration renewed every 8 December by the « Society » from its foundation right up until today.

« Adore »: as one adores the Cross because of Jesus who is fastened to it; or the Holy Shroud because of the Precious Blood with which it is imprinted. Knowing who She is, could anything be more fitting?

Brother Georges de Jésus-Marie.


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		Neither schism nor heresy	Ours is the true