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The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 21st century |
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HE IS RISEN! |
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No 68 |
Editor : Abbé Georges de Nantes |
May 2008 |
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The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 21st century |
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HE IS RISEN! |
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No 68 |
Editor : Abbé Georges de Nantes |
May 2008 |
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He will return with his immense
heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul |
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LOURDES, Our generation resembles the one in the time of Noah, that “antediluvian” patriarch who, alone, « had found favour in the eyes of Yahweh » (Gn 6.8) at a time when « the wickedness of man was great on the earth », to the point of greatly grieving the Creator Himself: « Yahweh regretted having made man upon the earth, and His Heart grieved. » (Gn 6.6) One man, however, consoled God: Noah, « a just man, a man of integrity among his contemporaries, and he walked with God » (Gn 6.9). So it was with Bernadette « among her contemporaries » in 1858, after the revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848. Ghéon has Mary put it nicely in the prologue to his play “Bernadette devant Marie”: the little shepherdess from Bartrès is « the only one » who still had the heart to love her heavenly Father and to pray to Him. In the universal punishment of the Flood, Noah would be spared and sheltered in a sort of sanctuary that God commanded him to build: « Make yourself an ark out of resinous wood. Make it with reeds and line it with pitch inside and out. » Mary likewise orders Bernadette: « Go tell the priests to build a chapel here. » A hundred and fifty years later, one could say that the said “chapel”, like « a Franco-Catholic ark before all the Floods », seems built according to the plan indicated to Noah: « Make a first, second and third deck. » (Gn 6.16) So it was with the Basilica of Lourdes, with its three « decks »: the Immaculate Conception, the Crypt and the Rosary (below).
This sanctuary is truly Noah’s ark that saves from the universal Flood of apostasy those who enter into it with faith, hope and charity. There resides « the Immaculate Conception », our refuge. Only those who enter it through grace in view of a total consecration to Her Immaculate Heart escape the contagion of universal apostasy. We read in Holy Scripture that, in order to save Moses from the massacre that Pharaoh had ordered, his mother placed him in « a papyrus basket that she coated with bitumen and pitch. She put the child inside and laid it among the reeds at the river’s edge. » (Ex 2.3) The name of the basket, in Hebrew tébah, is the very same as that of the ark of Noah. Thus « saved from the waters », Moses would in turn one day save Israel from the waters of the Reed Sea that he would make the Hebrews cross without getting their feet wet, by means of a dazzling miracle. Dear brethren, after the many thoroughly documented studies and the most ingenious hypotheses on the “crossing of the Red Sea”, the fact must be acknowledged today, in the light of the discoveries of archaeology, that the biblical account is based on a dazzling miracle, a very certain sign of an intervention of God. So it is with the events of Lourdes in 1858, saving our people from a universal disaster after the revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848. The birth of Moses, the saviour of his people, was not miraculous, but it was Myriam, the sister of the child, who found him a wet nurse: his own mother!... Thus she is the living figure of Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus, the Saviour of the world, who escaped from the massacre of the children of Bethlehem by Herod like Moses, newborn in the arms of Mary his sister, escaping the massacre ordered by the Pharaoh. From these admirable resemblances we can, we must, conclude that Lourdes was, to the letter, a new birth for the France of the nineteenth century, as the Exodus was for Israel at the end of the third millennium B.C. The Virgin Mary clearly made it known when She demanded that people come in procession to the Grotto and that a chapel be built for Her, thus imitating Yahweh-God when He ordered Moses to bring His people out of Egypt in order to climb the holy mountain in procession, to offer worship to Him. (Ex 3.10-12). The Covenant made by the Immaculate Conception with France marks her forever, as the Covenant made by Yahweh long ago marked Israel forever: « Henceforth, if you obey My voice and hold fast to My Covenant, I will hold you as My very own of all the nations, for all the earth is Mine. » (Ex 19.5) God wills to reign by Mary over the whole earth; and in order to establish this Catholic reign, Mary has chosen France as a privileged instrument. The history of France since1858 is a tortuous history in appearance, which leads, however, by the most direct “orthodromic” way, to the goal that is the Kingdom of God established on earth as in Heaven. This way that leads to God is « the Immaculate Conception ». I. THE OLD TESTAMENT The first apparition of the Immaculate after Her glorious Assumption is attested to by St. John, who was its beneficiary on Patmos, an Aegean island where he had been exiled during the persecution of Nero, before the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by Titus in 70 A.D.: « Then the Temple of God in Heaven opened, and His Ark of the Covenent appeared in the Temple… « 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 11.19; 12.2) Mary is Queen, clothed with the sun, which means the very glory of God; the Apostles are Her crown, the Angels Her rays of light. She advances in order to sustain Her final combat against Her eternal Adversary. We would have to wait eighteen centuries in order to see this “Mariophany” renew itself. On 27 November 1830, the Immaculate appeared to Sr. Catherine Labouré, who described her thus: « Against a blue sky, studded with stars higher up and like the dawn nearer the bottom, appears in a sun the Most Blessed Virgin, Her veil like the dawn, Her dress white, Her mantle sky blue, Her feet on a crescent, crushing the head of the Serpent with Her heel. Twelve stars encircle Her head, and there is a faint cloud beneath the crescent » She is the Virgin of the Apocalypse who had appeared to St. John eighteen centuries earlier. She appears like the « dawn », « preceding and revealing the Sun of justice, who is Jesus Christ » as St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort had prophesied at the beginning of the preceding century: « He began His miracles through Mary, and He will continue them to the end of time through Mary. » Conceived by God « before His most ancient works », as the liturgy of the Immaculate Conception sings, She accompanies the orthodromic course of the created universe from the beginning to the end of history. Her modern manifestations, inaugurated at Rue du Bac, in 1830, are a sort of recapitulation of the whole of divine orthodromy. At La Salette, on September 1846: Maximin and Mélanie were guarding their herds; suddenly, an intense light similar to a globe lit up the whole valley. In its centre, a « beautiful Lady » seated on a small pile of stones, was weeping with her head in her hands. « I believed at first, Maximin confided, that it was a mother whose children had beaten her, and who had fled to the mountains to weep freely! » It was indeed so, little one! Then they saw the Lady get up and take a few steps towards them. She was crowned with a diadem of rays, wearing clothes that were more brilliant than the sun, bordered with garlands of roses, and on Her breast there was a large crucifix upon which Jesus was nailed, between a hammer and tongs. She spoke to them first in French, then in dialect, and as they were spoken Her words engraved themselves in their souls in an indelible way. « Come, My children, do not be afraid: I am here to tell you great news. » What « great news »? This: « If My people are not willing to submit, I am forced to let fall the arm of My Son. » Her Son: the children were contemplating Him on this crucifix that seemed « embedded in Her breast ». This « beautiful Lady » was thus the Mother of God. In fact, She speaks like God the Father, repeating His Law as Her own, considering His People as Her own « It is so heavy and so oppressive that I can no longer hold it back. For so long have I suffered for you! » This was 19 September 1846, the last of the Ember Days and the eve of the feast of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, the hour when, our Lord gave up His Spirit, after having made His Mother our Mother by saying to St. John« Behold your Mother. » « If I do not wish My Son to abandon you, I must take it upon Myself to pray unceasingly for you. You think little of this! In vain will you pray, in vain will you act; you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken for you! » « I gave you six days to work; I kept the seventh for Myself, and no one wishes to grant it to Me. This is what weighs down the arm of My Son so much! Those who drive carts cannot swear without adding My Son’s name! These are the two things that weigh down the arm of My Son so much. » She speaks like Yahweh proclaiming these « two things » on Mount Sinai: « You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. » « Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath for Yahweh, your God. You shall not do any work, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male or female slave, nor your beasts, nor the alien who lives with you. In six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day He rested. That is why Yahweh has blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. » (Ex 20, 7-11) Mary continued: « If the harvest is spoiled, it is only because of you. I showed you this last year with the potatoes; you paid little attention. It was quite the contrary: when you found bad potatoes you swore oaths, and you included the name of My Son. They will continue to rot, and at Christmas there will be none left. » In Deuteronomy, Moses prophesies that the people will not follow the commandments of their God, and that they will be punished in the same way: « Cursed be the fruit of your womb, and the produce of your soil. » (Dt 28.18) The Virgin Mary repeats this moral code of the Old Testament: « If you have wheat, you must not sow it. The beasts will eat all that you sow. All that comes up will fall into dust when you thresh it. A great famine will come. Before the famine comes, children under the age of seven will begin to tremble and will die in the arms of those who hold them. The others will do penance through the famine. The nuts will go bad; the grapes will rot. » « If they are converted, the stones and rocks will change into heaps of wheat, and potatoes will be self-sown in the earth. » The Blessed Virgin then asks the children whether they say their prayers properly; She complains of Mass being deserted in summer, badly followed in winter; finally, the Lenten fasting and abstinence are no longer respected: « They go to the butcher’s like dogs! » La Salette, is the Old Testament. II. THE NEW TESTAMENT Lourdes is the Gospel, writes Fr. Zambelli, the director of this sanctuary: « When the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette in the cleft of the rock of Massabielle, She did not come with empty hands. » We now know, thanks to the discoveries of archaeology, that on the summit of Mount Sinai the grotto to which the Song of Songs alludes really exists: « O My dove, hidden in the cleft of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, let me see Your face, let me hear Your voice. » (Sg 2.14) The « dove » of Yahweh in the Song of Songs is His people, personified by Moses asking Yahweh: « Please show me Your glory ». Yahweh replies: « Man cannot see Me and live », but « behold, here is a place near Me. You shall stand upon the rock. When My glory passes by, I will set you in a crevice of the rock. » (Ex 33.20-22) By appearing in the « cleft of the rock », the Virgin Mary reveals at Lourdes that She is the Immaculate Spouse, the object of the divine favour, victorious over the infidelity of Israel. On the mountain at La Salette, Maximin and Mélanie discovered Mary in tears, like « a mother whose children had beaten her », Maximin said. At Lourdes, on the other hand, the Rosary recalls the Angelic Salutation inviting Mary to joy: « Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. » (Lk 1.28) « We in fact know that She carried on Her wrist a Rosary that She recited with Bernadette, Fr. Zambelli continues. We are wrong, however, to consider this Rosary as a simple object of piety. By presenting Herself in this way, Mary in fact appeared with the Gospel in Her hand. Is not the Rosary a simplified version of the Gospel, a sort of pocket Gospel accessible to everyone at every moment? » Fr. Zambelli adds that « by bringing the Gospel to men in the simplest form possible, the Rosary, Mary in fact offers us Christ because the Gospel is Christ. » This is actually the object of the angelic proclamation: « Behold, You shall conceive in Your womb and bear a Son, and You shall give Him the name of Jesus » (Lk 1.31) This answers Hans Küng, a “theologian” more Protestant than Catholic, who refuses the fact of Lourdes because the Virgin presents Herself there without Her Child. There is none so blind as he who will not see! Fr. Zambelli continues: « Mary presented Herself at Lourdes as the messenger of the Gospel, sent by Her Son in order to remind lost and sinful men of the immensity of His love. » Also to ravish their hearts. « Oh! How beautiful She is! » Bernadette said to Fr. Marie-Antoine, unwittingly quoting the Song of Songs (Sg 1.15, 4.1). Who could see Her without loving Her? When asking Her name so many times, Bernadette was again quoting the Song: « Quæ est ista? » Who is She? At Lourdes, She answered on the feast of the Annunciation, 25 March 1858: « I am the Immaculate Conception. » It is Her Name. This Name is a vocation; this Name is a history; this Name is a tragedy. A VOCATION. « I am »: She exists as does this rock that I touch, on which She set foot. Already, at this one thought, at this shock of “the depth of being”, our heart exults. She says « I am » as Yahweh-God did to Moses, as Jesus did to the Jews: « I am ». The founding miracle of Bétharram (infra, p. 16), was already the revelation of the Immaculate Conception, by manifesting Her image in a burning bush. As our Father, the Abbé de Nantes, said in a sermon: « The more we study the apparitions of the Most Blessed Virgin, the more one of them is brought out without throwing the others into the shade. They are like summits, luminous mysteries, and these summits seem increasingly lofty as we approach them, without ever standing in each other’s light. On the contrary, these apparitions support each other. Far from fading before Our Lady of Lourdes, devotion to Our Lady of La Salette shines more brilliantly. All is to the glory of the Immaculate Conception, in the manner of the Old Testament, so to speak: at La Salette, in a way very marked by original sin and its consequences for us all, and its exemption in the case of the Virgin Mary at Rue du Bac, with the invocation revealed to St. Catherine: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”This means that, from Adam and Eve until the end of the world, She alone has been preserved from original sin, a truth that would be the object of a dogmatic definition in 1854. « At Lourdes, however, we pass from this restrictive sense to a new understanding of the dogma. the Virgin said: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” It is Her proper Name. » « I am ». She is, by vocation to the divine Maternity, « the Immaculate Conception »: Daughter of God, She is His « Conception », as Jesus is His Word, Himself the eternal Conception of the Father from whom He proceeds. The term “Word”, logos, expresses the relationship of origin through which the Father conveys all His wisdom, pours Himself entirely into another self who is His beloved Son. Now, the Virgin Mary, more divine than human, also calls Herself an eternal work of God: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” St. Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort seems to have caught a glimpse of this mystery, with the enlightenment of a Doctor of the Church: « What I say in an absolute way about Jesus Christ I say in a relative way about the Blessed Virgin. Since Jesus Christ chose Her as the indissoluble companion of His life, His death, His glory, His power in Heaven and on the earth, He gave Her through grace, relatively to His majesty, all the same rights and privileges that He possesses by nature. » Daughter of Eve, totally apart from the mass of perdition, Mary Immaculate is, with the Word, Her Son, above all Their subjects. Quoting Psalm 44, « I see a Queen at Your right hand », Fr. Marie-Antoine writes: « She shares the royal throne and there She fulfils the mission that a queen carries out alongside the king. Astitit Regina a dextris tuis. » She enjoys the same privileges as the King Himself, forming with Him alone a pure and perfect humanity, new and apart. God the Father is delighted to see Her appear in the midst of humanity, which lies desolate in the darkness. « The mission of Mary is thus the mission of the Spouse of the King of kings, Fr. Marie-Antoine continues, and it is for the purpose of fulfilling this mission that She is placed on the same throne; but since this throne is raised above the angels and seems to disappear from our sight in the midst of the eternal splendours, God, in order to give us an exact idea of the Mission of Mary, has placed before our eyes the throne of a king powerful among all kings and a queen lovable and gracious among all queens: Ahasuerus and Esther. » A HISTORY. The Book of Esther announces the mission of Mary in figure, in a manner upon which the Fathers of the Church marvellously shed light, as did Fr. Marie-Antoine in the nineteenth century and the Abbé de Nantes in the twentieth. It is not a fable but a historical episode, related in the veiled form of a midrash, that is to say, an edifying legend. « For anyone who scrutinises the text attentively, there is no doubt that the drama it evokes before our eyes with such liveliness and pathos is wonderfully enacted through allegorical figures, all to the glory of the God of Israel who unfailingly saves His people at all times from the greatest perils. » (The Book of Esther Today, CCR no 196, January 1987, p. 1) In order for this religious lesson to have an effect, the account must have a historical basis, which our Father, in his commentary, endeavoured to bring to light. The Book of Esther relates how the Jews established in Persia were threatened with extermination by the jealous hatred of an all-powerful vizier named Haman, and how they were saved thanks to Esther, a young compatriot who had become Queen, and was herself directed by her uncle Mordecai. The story is plausible, for « after their liberation from the Babylonian Captivity by Cyrus the Persian in 538, our Father explains, the Jews flocked back to Jerusalem, although there were quite a few who remained on the banks of the Euphrates where they had acquired comfortable positions. Some of them were able to settle down in Susa. The dominion of the Persians was everywhere favourable to them. » (ibid., p. 10) If the Book of Esther dated from that time, however, « it would have dangerously exalted the racism of the Jews against imaginary persecutors. » On the other hand, centuries later, « everything had changed with the domination of the Seleucids, masters of Syria ». More than a hundred and fifty years after the fall of the Persian Empire under the assaults of Alexander the Great in 331, Antiochus IV Epiphanius (175-164 B.C.) unleashed a terrible persecution, banned circumcision under pain of death and other Jewish usages, and abolished sacrifices in the Temple, where the idol of Jupiter was set up in the Holy of Holies; it was the « Abomination of desolation. »! « Well, if the midrash of Esther were of this period, that fact alone would give it a sacred and touching value. Beneath the light fiction, there is a lesson to be read, carefully concealed so as not to be apparent to the occupier and to renegades, the better to reach its divine goal: to encourage the persecuted, to awaken their hope, to hold out, in the form of an ancient story, the certainty of a miraculous intervention of God, reversing destiny! » « Now, we have proof of this in the text itself, a secret key assuring us that we are not mistaken. In the Greek part of the narrative, the wicked Haman, who elsewhere is always referred to as the Amalacite, is once declared to be... Macedonian. », that is to say, Greek! « It is this prudence necessitated by the furious persecution being suffered, which dates our Book from the worst years of enforced hellenisation that was threatening with annihilation the religion, the Covenant and the identity of the Jewish people, affecting its very heart and soul... This was the right moment to announce, as drawing near, the omnipotent and marvellous intervention of the God of the Jews, capable of saving them from the extremity of misfortune. » Through the mediation of whom? Through the mediation of an incomparably beautiful Queen, the figure of the Virgin who would give birth to the Saviour, according to the promise made by God to our first parents. Eve, who had fallen through pride into concupiscence, blushed to appear before God (Gn 3.8). Thus, the haughty Vashti, figure of Eve, held back by the same shame and the same pride, refused to appear before her king, so we are told, at the beginning of the account (Est 1.12). Among all the young girls presented to King Ahasuerus to replace the unfaithful wife and substitute for her a spouse worthy of him, was found Esther, « who had been adopted by her uncle Mordecai on the death of her parents and brought up by him as his own daughter. » A figure of the Immaculate, she was a virgin, wise and very beautiful. « She won over all who saw her » Despite her simple attire and modest bearing, « the King preferred her to any of the other women. She, more than any other girl, found favour and approval with him. » « Now, what did Esther do as soon as she was in possession of the first throne of the world? Fr. Marie-Antoine exclaims. She fulfilled the redemptive mission of her people, such an unhappy, exiled people, on whom weighed a death sentence that Haman, their cruel enemy, had just brought against them. This people had to be saved; this was the great, the sole mission of Esther… » The law, however, was inexorable. No one could present himself before King Ahasuerus without being convoked (Est 14.1-4). « Come to my help, o my God, she begged, no on is with me, to help me; I am alone, without support; You alone can save me. » Here is how it applies to the Blessed Virgin: The danger of sin and death surrounded the soul of Mary at Her entrance into humanity, a sepulchre of death, where each soul is condemned as soon as it unites with flesh, and becomes unworthy of presenting itself before God, unless God Himself calls it and purifies it. Within this fallen humanity, Mary found no one to assist Her: Her father and Her ancestors had been unable to preserve themselves from the tooth of the reptile. God alone, who is figured by Ahasuerus, could save Mary by the superabundance of grace. Seated on his throne and arrayed in his royal mantle, blazing with gold and precious stones, Ahasuerus showed himself in all his majesty that inspired terror (Est 15.9-10). His eyes sparkled with anger when he saw someone cross the threshold without having been convoked. It was Esther. Upon seeing Ahasuerus irritated, she went pale and grew faint. Recognising his beloved spouse, Ahasuerus defused his anger, descended from his throne, and rushed to her: « What is the matter, Esther? I am your brother. » (Est 15.11-12) Fortified by Her humility, the Immaculate dared to present Herself before a God irritated against every human creature and, beneath His terrible countenance, She grows faint, Her soul embracing the infirmities of a flesh made mortal and capable of suffering because of the sins of others. Underneath this fragile exterior, innocence was perfect, in soul and body. Becoming man in Her virginal womb through the operation of the Holy Spirit, God Himself, our Ahasuerus, in fact became Her “Brother”, and at the same time Her Son. « You will not die, because it is not for you, but for all those for whom this law of death was established. » He did not say « for all except you », for Mary is not an exception, a creature granted a pardon among all “the others”; She is the Immaculate Conception, a privileged creature of another order than all “the others”. Her predestination to the divine Motherhood truly distinguishes Her from universality itself, puts Her totally apart from the common mass, which includes all men, without exception. « Approach, Ahasuerus also said to Esther, and touch my royal sceptre as a sure sign of your security and of my love »; and as she did not respond, he took his golden sceptre and placing it on the neck of Esther, he gave the kiss of peace to this beloved spouse. The sceptre of the King of kings is the Cross, a sceptre of wood according to nature, a sceptre of gold through charity. A TRAGEDY. « It was not enough for Esther, Fr. Marie-Antoine continues, to conquer the throne by the radiance of her charm and to use her omnipotence over the heart of her royal husband to save her people. Destined to be the perfect figure of Mary Immaculate, she had yet a third mission to fulfil: she had to show the world the most beautiful and the most useful spectacle to contemplate, that of weakness triumphing over force, of simplicity triumphing over pride, and finally, of the most lovable gentleness triumphing over the cruellest ferocity; she did so by her triumph over Haman… » « Mary is the true Esther; Satan is the true Haman. It is to our very unhappy time, which will become so glorious, that God, from all eternity, has reserved the glory and happiness of contemplating the complete and definitive triumph of Mary over Satan embodied in the Antichrist, of whom we see so many precursors before our eyes. Nineteen centuries had awaited and prepared this decisive combat; our century alone contemplates it. It is in order to wage it that Mary was proclaimed the Immaculate. » In the eyes of Fr. Marie-Antoine, Mordecai, « the man of indomitable courage », is Pius IX: « When everyone was trembling before Haman, he alone did not tremble; when everyone was talking about making concessions, he alone made none. Do you not recognise the immortal, the inflexible Pius IX? » Notice that Antichrist is not identified by Fr. Marie-Antoine, who only knows his “forerunners”. On the other hand, Esther is well identified: « I saw, Mordecai said, a little spring that could barely emerge from the earth, and little by little it became as abundant as a river. Each of its drops of water was changed into a luminous ray and became as brilliant as the sun, and this luminous water spread throughout the whole earth […]. » « Did not Pius IX also have his vision in his exile in Gaeta? Was it not there that a ray from Heaven came to visit him, like Mordecai, in order to make him understand that if he could crown the Immaculate, his dear Esther, his beloved Virgin, with her diadem, the revolution would be defeated and the world saved? In consequence of this divine intuition, did he not send to the Christian universe his memorable encyclical of 2 February 1849? After a while, did he not have the happiness of seeing the little spring surging from the rock of Gaeta become a great river that flooded the whole earth with joy? On 8 December 1854, did not the vaults of the Vatican ring with the acclamations of the Pontiffs of Christendom and the inhabitants of the Eternal City hailing with him Mary, Immaculate in Her Conception, as Mordecai and all the children of Israel had greeted Esther, proclaimed queen and spouse of the great king? This was, however, only the prelude. « Mordecai did not only see the little spring become a great river, he saw the little spring, his Esther, become a radiant sun. « Here at last is this radiant sun. It rose on the day that Mary said: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” » « This sun shone; it rose upon our France. Yes, it is in France that the sun of the Immaculate Conception has risen. It emerged from the dark Grotto as a conqueror, where under the hand of Bernadette the little spring had just surged. Soon it also, abundant as a river and each of its drops of water, miraculous and luminous at the same time, is going to the ends of the earth to announce the imminent day of the great triumph. The world has always awaited this day as the consequence of the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception but, since the apparition at the dear Grotto, it is certain to see it soon appear. Pius IX announced this day to the world when he said to all the bishops of the Catholic universe, united around his throne: « A day will arrive, a day of marvels on which, thanks to the Immaculate Conception, the head of Satan will be crushed and on which God will show that the dreadful storm in which we are was not raised to submerge the vessel of the Church, but to elevate her to new heights that she had never yet reached.” » III. ESCHATOLOGY Fr. Marie-Antoine thus opened the way that the Abbé de Nantes would follow when interpreting the Book of Esther as « a vast prophetic allegory of our twentieth-century drama of what has already been, of what is underway and of what is still to come. Please God that my exegesis may be true in every point, for then its denouement is near and will be a happy one! » (The Book of Esther Today, CCR no 196, January 1987) WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN. By giving Pope Pius IX the role of Mordecai, Fr. Marie-Antoine bears witness to the time when Antichrist, Satan himself, according to the interpretation of Fr. Marie-Antoine, clashed with Christ in the person of His Vicar, “our sweet Christ on earth”, as St. Catherine of Siena called the Pope. Of course, at that time, « the mystery of impiety » was already at work, to speak like St. Paul, but « the one who is holding it back » had not yet been « removed » (2 Th 2.7). It would be necessary to wait until the reign of Pius X for this worthy successor of Pius IX to communicate to the world, in his first encyclical, his fear « that the Son of Perdition of whom the Apostle speaks may already be living upon this earth » (E supremi apostolatus, 4 October 1903) and that the time of the great apostasy had come. The time of the Church, in which the Pope plays the role of Mordecai, corresponds in the Book of Esther to the time when « “Mordecai was a chamberlain at the Royal Entrance”, in other words, at the central administration of the empire. This is how he got wind of a plot hatched by two traitors, whose project was nothing less than to assassinate King Ahasuerus and overthrow his throne! » (CCR no 196, p. 3) Under Pius IX, these « traitors » were the “Catholic liberals”; under Pius X, they were the Modernists, opening the way to the atheists, announced by the same Pope as the ultimate stage of the apostasy to which we are given over today. WHAT IS UNDERWAY. « Obviously, nobody is obliged to make my interpretations his own », our Father wrote, but « I venture to claim to have rendered the same signal service, during the grave crisis opened by the Council, in laying bare a plot and denouncing its authors, in order to save the throne of St. Peter and thence the unity of the threatened Church, that Mordecai rendered to the Great King ». The claim is not excessive, for this « signal service » is in keeping with the stance of Pius IX, a great votary of Mary, with that of Pius X, a touching and humble disciple of Jesus Christ, and of Pius XII, an ardent servant of the Church: three Pontiffs who were resolute adversaries of the liberals, modernists and progressivists. Our Father wrote: « I quickly felt that things would go badly, and from the very opening of the Council, as I listened to the words, read the speeches and observed the conduct of those who claimed the leading roles there, advocating that everything about our religion should be reformed and changed, I gave notice that if they should ever succeed in their perverse designs... “I shall disobey” – not in the conditional, but in the future – the better to express my firm and definitive resolve. It is written in my Letter to My Friends of that same day, 11 October 1962. » (no 120), the opening day of the Council. « I have not bent my knee since that date before these perverse men, other than in their liturgical and canonical functions when they efface themselves and allow us to forget, to disregard who they are in order to see only what they do as the representatives and delegates of our Ahasuerus, » our very dear Heavenly Father. Since this baneful 11 October 1962, « not a day passes, when they do not think of excommunicating us and, in some way or other, causing us to disappear. Such is the central drama of today’s Church. The only hatred, the only war they foment is against us. » For what reason? The edict of extermination against the Jews, written in the hand of Haman the Amalecite, the ungodly, the man of Satan, the Adversary, lets it be seen in advance, prophetically, by putting forward the grounds for this odious genocide, the figure of our excommunication: « Thus to assure for all, with moderation and kindness, the perpetual enjoyment of an existence free from storms and a civilisation of freedom and of peace! » Like Mordecai going through the streets of Susa, proclaiming his indignation and his fear, only stopping before the Royal Entrance, the Abbé de Nantes presented himself at the Bronze Door of the Apostolic Palace in Rome three times to lodge a complaint. Apart from the friends who accompanied him, holy souls did not understand, fearing rejection by God at the slightest idea of criticism. Esther herself, cloistered and prisoner in her Carmel of Coimbra, remained silent and submissive to the diktats of the supreme authority. Thus, the times that we are living through are unfolding along two lines since the death of Pius XII in 1958: in the street and in the cloisters, in our circles of the Catholic-Counter Reformation and in the closed, stifled religious world. We cause alarm, we impose controversy, we anticipate the slaughter of our entire people, with the prayer of Mordecai in our hearts: « You know all things! You know, Lord, that no insolence, arrogance, or vainglory prompted me to do what I have done: to refuse to bow down before proud Haman. I would readily have kissed his feet for the safety of Israel. « Yet what I did, I did in order not to place the glory of a man above the glory of God; and I will not bow down to any but to You, Lord: in so refusing I will not act in pride. » (Est 4.23-24) « Like Mordecai, our model, we only wished to keep our hearts unscathed by all idolatry. We refused the “cult of man” » proclaimed by Paul VI in the aula of St. Peter’s on 7 December 1965, in a clear conclusion to the works of a « baneful Council », to the applause of the whole world, but not of Heaven! WHAT IS STILL TO COME. The lesson of the Book of Esther ends with the promise of a great reversal of fates by the imminent fall of « the sordid modernist sect », as the Abbé de Nantes calls the perpetrators of this revolution, and the triumph of the Virgin Mary, Esther of the New Covenant, opening the glorious reign of the Sacred Heart of Her Son united to Her Immaculate Heart, to the applause of earth and Heaven finally reconciled. Even though we are closer to it than we have ever been, as St. Paul says, « it still lies in a future that is too inconceivable, unimaginable for the combatants, the wounded and the dying that we are, to be moved by any impossible happiness or sacred joy, the thought of which has only to cross our minds to break our hearts »(CCR no 196, p. 13). Twenty years ago, the Abbé de Nantes placed the prayer of Esther on the lips of Sister Lucy, the messenger of Our Lady of Fatima. This prayer had already suited St. Bernadette, murmuring it at the moment of her death, after a life of heroic virtue: « Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me, poor sinner, poor sinner… » She could truly say it, having seen with her very eyes, the Immaculate, the only creature who cannot call Herself a “sinner”. Today we must make our own the prayer of Esther that « is in distress what the Magnificat of the Blessed Virgin is in joy », the Abbé de Nantes writes. It is the prayer of our Phalange of the Immaculate, seeking from our very dear Heavenly Father the courage that it lacks before the danger that it still must face, in the uncertainty of being considered just, innocent, before God and His people: « O my Lord, our King, You are the Unique One! Come to our aid, for we are alone and we have no other recourse than You at the moment of risking our lives. I learned, from the cradle, in the bosom of my family, that it is You, Lord, who has chosen France from among all peoples and our fathers from among all their ancestors, to be Your eternal heritage; and You treated them as You had said. » « Yes, it is in France that the sun of the Immaculate Conception has risen », Fr. Marie-Antoine proclaimed a hundred and fifty years ago. « It emerged victorious from the shadowy Grotto » of the revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848. This means that the return of France to her sin in 1871, 1924 and 1944, despite the persistent miracle of Lourdes, has earned us the present chastisement: the city of God « half in ruins », and the remains exposed to war and persecution. « Then, we sinned against You, and You handed us over into the hands of our enemies for the honours given to their gods. You are just, Lord! » Here, then, is our prayer today: « Do not abandon Your sceptre, Lord, to the gods who are not God. » All the idols of an apostate world! « No bitter remarks about our ruin! Turn these projects against their perpetrators, And make an example out of the first of our assailants! » Through his conversion, which will surprise the world and convert it! « Remember, Lord, manifest Yourself on the day of our tribulation! As for me, give me courage, God of gods and Lord of lords. My God, whose strength prevails over all, listen to the voice of the desperate, remove us from the hand of the wicked and free me from my fear. » What fear? The fear of displeasing You, o my God, by opposing, following our Mordecai, this Reform of the Church that You seem to approve through the mouth of Your Vicar. Nevertheless, Lord, the « great apostasy » predicted by the Scriptures that You inspired, which we witness powerless, has brought into too cruel a light the personal fallibility and sometimes even the heresy, schism and scandal of the supreme pastors of the Church for us to be able to submit to them without betraying You! Did not St. Peter himself hear himself called « Satan » by You, O Jesus, and did he not « weep bitterly » over his triple denial? Lord, we do not demand any other “vengeance” than to see our Holy Father the Pope call back from their banishment the good priests, holy religious, devout faithful of the Virgin Mary, and the loyal servants of the Roman Pontiff – beginning with our Father, the Abbé Georges de Nantes – in order to relieve them of the unjust sanctions that have been imposed on them. Thus, for the honour of God, the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the salvation of souls, the peace and prosperity of the entire human race, truth, order and holiness will blossom everywhere. Oh! What a fine revenge it will be, accompanied by countless conversions and unlimited forgiveness! Brother Bruno of Jesus.
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