H/T Evan
St.Louis de Montfort Louis’s life is inseparable from his efforts to promote genuine devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus and mother of the church. Totus tuus (completely yours) was Louis’s personal motto; Karol Wojtyla chose it as his episcopal motto. Born in the Breton village of Montfort, close to Rennes (France), as an adult Louis identified himself by the place of his baptism instead of his family name, Grignion. After being educated by the Jesuits and the Sulpicians, he was ordained as a diocesan priest in 1700. Soon he began preaching parish missions throughout western France. His years of ministering to the poor prompted him to travel and live very simply, sometimes getting him into trouble with church authorities. In his preaching, which attracted thousands of people back to the faith, Father Louis recommended frequent, even daily, Holy Communion (not the custom then!) and imitation of the Virgin Mary’s ongoing acceptance of God’s will for her life. Louis founded the Missionaries of the Company of Mary (for priests and brothers) and the Daughters of Wisdom, who cared especially for the sick. His book, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, has become a classic explanation of Marian devotion. Louis died in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre, where a basilica has been erected in his honor. He was canonized in 1947.
The Church is about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The Church, being the Body of Christ, can expect to be on the Cross, century after century, in this world. Christ was sinless and “became sin” for us. The Church, being the People of God, hangs on that Cross in Christ. At the Last Supper there was Communion. The Church hangs on that Cross mystically born in the heart of Christ. We are humiliated by our sins, the sin of people, and the sin of the world for which Christ is dying.
Resurrection comes after the suffering and the Passion. Our sinfulness is not the end. Our sinfulness is not the end. It’s the reason Christ died and now lives in His People, including His pope and His clergy. We are still learning how to be Christlike.
The Anchoress posted “No one wants to see pope prostrate.” In light of the grandiloquence surrounding the issue of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, getting the facts out is more important than ever to the Church, but with the wizardry of Presentism, the smoke and mirrors of time employed by The New York Times, distortions rule. Presentism, “a mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas and perspectives are anachronistically introduced into depictions or interpretations of the Past, or as Webster states it, “an attitude toward the past dominated by present-day attitudes and experiences,” is itself a distortion. It is illogical and unreasonable. It is important to note that newspapers like the NY Times sell newspapers; sex and scandal sell.
An appeal to Benedict XVI as reported by the Catholic Herald‘s Anna Arco:
“I wish to speak on behalf of those young people who, like me feel they are on the outskirts of the Church. We are the ones who do not fit comfortably into stereo-typed roles. This is due to various factors among them: either because we have experienced substance abuse; or because we are experiencing the misfortune of broken or dysfunctional families; or because we are of a different sexual orientation; among us are also our immigrant brothers and sisters, all of us in some way or another have encountered experiences that have estranged us from the Church. Other Catholics put us all in one basket. For them we are those “who claim to believe yet do not live up to the commitment of faith.”To us, faith is a confusing reality and this causes us great suffering. We feel that not even the Church herself recognizes our worth. One of our deepest wounds stems from the fact that although the political forces are prepared to realize our desire for integration, the Church community still considers us to be a problem. It seems almost as if we are less readily accepted and treated with dignity by the Christian community than we are by all other members of society. Continue reading
Be Holy! 