The future is bright, the future in Monastic.

 Happy Feast Day of St Benedict!

Today is the first of two Feasts of St Benedict, the other being on 11th July.

St Benedict, Father of Western Monasticism and one of the Patrons of Europe. 

I think that St Benedict's vision is not really understood by most Catholics. Sure, he is known as the Founder of the Benedictine Order but his actual vision is not known.

However, to understand the future of the Church we need to understand that vision. At its heart the Catholic Church is Monastic, therefore so will its future.

When we look back over History, especially European History, we see how the Benedictines basically built Europe. Monasteries became centres of beauty, Liturgy, art, culture, music, language and academic learning. Around these glorious monasteries many villages, towns and cities grew. 

People instinctively knew the value of Monastic life. The monasteries became the hub around which their lives revolved. Minds, hearts, souls and bodies (the Monasteries provided work and food) were nourished. It was, and still is, a harmonious system. It still continues in certain Traditional monasteries today. 

It is so important that one just needs to look at how desperately ugly and impoverished England became on so many levels after Henry VIII destroyed Monastic life during his reign. He left the country devasted and bereft. He ripped out its heart and left the ruins of many Monasteries as stark reminders of the shell that England had become.

But we take heart. Countless Catholic prophecies point to a Golden Age, the Age of Mary wherein Monasticism will flourish anew. Indeed, many visionaries state that at the end of the world only two religious orders will prevail: Benedictine and Carmelite. These two Religious orders are and have been the main pillars of the Church's spiritual life.

Furthermore, many visionaries also state that during the Age of Mary, the era of Peace, there will be so many vocations and many monasteries and churches will be built that people will struggle to keep pace.

So why Monasticism?

Traditional monasticism distils the very essence of the Catholic Faith. A life lived rooted in a noble and beautiful Liturgy. This is central to the spiritual life. A right ordered adoration of God. The justice of giving God what He is due. A right ordered adoration which, when we cooperate with it, we become right ordered ourselves.

A life of the Glory of God's beauty made manifest in the Traditional Latin Mass and Gregorian Chant. This is the nourishment of the heart and soul, where the Sacraments are celebrated with reverence and are imbued with Tradition. Nothing compares with it. The most beautiful thing this side of Heaven. A true foretaste of the Beatific Vision.

The mind is nourished with Sacred Learning. The writings of the Saints and the Sciences rightly ordered to God's glory and the benefit of man. 

A harmonious relationship with the earth. Yes, Traditional Catholic Monasteries were the original "Green movement" properly understood. Not this superficial, false ideology that you find peddled by the likes of Greta Thunberg. No. What I am talking about is man living in his true environment. Working by the sweat of his brow. Working in harmony with nature just like the Traditional Monasteries do. A truly organic life where nature is respected by those who till the earth. 

Like our grandparents and great grandparents, monastic life wastes nothing. A frugal life filled with simplicity and gratitude was the true "recycling mentality". Our forefathers and the monasteries never polluted the earth.

Truly, pollution only became an issue when modern man moved away from a simple, God centred and ordered lifestyle. Big cities, big bucks and Godlessness took precedence.

So, picture the scene. 

The green countryside. An enormous Benedictine Abbey. The sun is shining. It is the month of May, Mary's month. There are flowers everywhere. Monks and lay people are outside, ploughing the fields, tending the crops and flocks. Honey bees, free from modernistic man's pharmaceutical pesticides, buzz around the medicinal herb garden.

The people are sweating. They are working hard. No one is dropping dead from Myocarditis from any poisonous vaxx.

Families cooperating with each other to educate their children with a Godly, Classical education.

In the distance, the Abbey bell rings out the Angelus. The people pause to pray together.

They gather up their tools. The Monks make their way back to the Abbey in order to pray Sext in their beautifully hand carved Choirstalls.

God imbues everyone, everything, everywhere.

They've finally admitted it!

Matthew Hazell on Twitter: "I notice this morning Arthur Cardinal Roche is embarrassing himself again, this time on BBC Radio 4... "You know, the theology of the Church has changed..." – well, it hasn't, but do go on showing that the hermeneutic of rupture is now in full swing at the DDW, Your Eminence. 🤦 https://t.co/PcwaiJVOMh" / Twitter

Cardinal Arthur Roche has done something very few Modernist heretics have ever done.

He has openly and boldly admitted what he believes. Namely, that the Theology of the Church has changed.

That's it. No more defence of the Hermeneutic of Continuity. The last atom of defence definitively died on 19th March 2023, the Feast of St Joseph the Terror of demons and the Protector of the Church. With God there are no coincidences.

So there is absolutely no hiding it now. We see clearly from his lips and, therefore the lips of the one he represents (BerGOGlio), why they HATE the Traditional Mass and want it destroyed.

CATHOLIC Theology is what they hate.

The SAINTLY Archbishop Lefebvre stands completely, totally and absolutely vindicated.

Vigano stands vindicated.

The Church has been infected by parasites in vestments. Modernist, Homoheretical wolves in sheep's clothing.

Freemasons and Satanists. 

Godless and faithless.

Like a creeping cancer they have been eating away at the bones and the guts of the Church.

BUT for us, in a strange sort of way, this is wonderful news. How come? 

Firstly, we can take great heart. We are on the right track. Through this God is confirming what we believe.

Secondly, we have been given an opportunity to display great courage and say to these perverse heretics a loud, resound NO! We will NOT yield our Faith no matter what.

Thirdly, it can be an opportunity for those who are wavering in Novus Ordolandia to have their blinkers ripped off. They have finally, openly confessed it. Theirs is a DIFFERENT THEOLOGY. It is a changed Theology. 

Think about it like this. If the Theology of the Church has changed then the Church has changed. If that is the case then it is NO LONGER the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ and adorned by Our Lady and so many countless Saints.

It is no longer the Church of the Martyrs.

It is no longer the Church of our forefathers.

It is a DIFFERENT Church.

It, therefore, cannot be the Catholic Church in its true, fullest sense.

God does not change. Truth does not change. The Theology of the Catholic Church, which is God's Church, cannot change.

So, Cardinal Roche...Here is my message to you.

To HELL with your changed Theology. I don't want. Send it back to Satan from whence it came.

I want the CATHOLIC Theology that my forefathers (especially my Irish ancestors) were persecuted for.

I want the CATHOLIC Theology that my favourite Saints lived and died for.

I DON'T want what you are offering and I resist you and your rubbish to your face.

I will have NO part in it and, by God's grace, will persist in it until my last breath.

Friends, listen to Cardinal Roche's words. He means what he says. So better had we.

Take heart. God is moving to unmask this Counterfeit Church. The enemies are full of arrogance and it is making them overly confident. They are over playing their hand.

Take heart and courage. The Traditional Mass, Sacraments and Faith are growing, especially among the young. The enemies fear it and hate it. We love it and foster it.

Keep it at the forefront of your minds. God is working!

Our Lady will Triumph as She promised in Fatima. 

Take courage. Pray!

Feelings don't matter!

I can't begin to tell you how many times I have been told that by well meaning Catholics.

Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed such people, though well meaning, are flirting with heresy. That heresy has a name: Angelism

Today, on the whole, we are facing two erroneous extremes. On the generally conservative side there is the tendency to downplay feelings and emotions with the saying that "they don't matter."

On the Left you tend to find the polar opposite. 

Just picture the screaming, out of control Left winger with purple hair. Be it abortion or LGBTQ+ etc, they are full of out of control, raw emotion which leads some of them to be demonically oppressed (maybe possessed) and barking mad (some literally barking).

Neither of these positions are correct nor healthy.

To find the Truth we need look no further than Jesus.

We read in St John's Gospel Ch 11 v 35 that "Jesus wept". Furthermore, we read in verse 38 that Jesus was "groaning in himself."

Jesus is crying real human tears. Jesus is groaning in real sorrow and pain at the death of His friend Lazarus and at the mourning of the people gathered there.

Yet Jesus knew what He was going to do for His friend. He knew that death was not to have the final word.

Why did He cry? Why did He show His feelings and emotions?

Firstly, to confirm His humanity. Jesus is True God but also True MAN. Secondly, I believe He showed His emotions to sanctify emotions. In Jesus every aspect of our lives can be sanctified.

The Saint is a Saint in everything. You cannot be a Saint in part.

God created man with emotions. The problem is that since the Fall human feelings and emotions have been tainted by Original Sin and Concupiscence.

So what is the answer? Grace.

With Grace we are able to grow in emotional maturity. Some people think that emotional maturity is a Catholic form of Stoicism. But Stoicism is not Christ like.

This is a particular problem among men. Often you find well meaning men who show little or no emotion. I have seen this sort of thing being praised even among Traditional Catholics.

But the reality is that such men may be just as emotionally immature as the screaming Liberal at the Pride parade. They may be emotionally stunted. Emotional development and affective maturity has been prevented somehow. The Church and the world needs men who have a healthy affective maturity. Compassion and empathy are not just for women.

The man who cries at a sad scene in a film or at the sight of starving children on TV may be affectively more mature than his stoical comrades. Such a man is able to feel sorrow and empathy at the sufferings of others. This is a good thing and something that every man should seek to develop and cultivate in their lives. 

If you are one of those men who weeps at suffering and you are chided for your tears just remember that Jesus wept.

The answer is very simple. A thoroughly healthy emotional maturity is one in which our emotions are submitted to God's Grace. It is not a question of basing our decisions on a whimsical passing feeling. Neither is it about "being in control" to the extent that we fall into a robotic way of behaving.

We are called to grow to our full stature in Grace. Compassion, empathy and the shedding of a tear over our broken world is good. Just remember that St Padre Pio did a lot of crying!

Feelings and emotions, in the right context and in the right way, DO matter. They are a part of being human and the glory of God is "man fully alive. (St Irenaeus)

Remember Jesus and Lazarus next time someone tries to tell you that feelings don't matter.

We are all invited to become more Christ like, even in our tears.

God bless