No one is conquered until he has given up the struggle.

The remedy for pride is humility.

The only way to attain to humility is to be humble.

We conquer self-love by loving God.

We must never give up hope.

We are to love God above all things in the world.

We are to hate sin, so that we are resolved never to commit one wilful sin, for the love or fear of anyone or anything whatsoever. [Slightly altered from the Penny Catechism by me.]

We should not answer with impatience, but bear wrongs patiently.

If we wish to become saints, we should never complain about anything. If we wish to become saints, we should never complain about anything, even on the inside. [~Fr Hardon]

"Humility is truth." (St Theresa of Ávila)

"It is our business to give up all for whatever is truth." - Belloc

It is impossible to be humble or chaste without prayer.

"Pray continually."

"God resists the proud."

The frequentation of the Sacraments is the easiest way to become a Saint. (If I followed my own advice, I would be a Saint. I have to confess that I do not follow my own advice, for I cannot refuse this advice to you, but I could not give it to you and not admit that.)

Without God WE CAN DO NOTHING! NOTHING! Not "a little bit"! NOTHING!!! (Paraphrased from St Augustine, from Our Lord)

If we love God, we shall be hated by men. Shall we then cease to love God?

"Daily Communion is the quickest and surest way to heaven." - St Pius X. I repeat what I said above.

The practice of humility shows itself in obedience.

The unchaste and the proud will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Full stop. Eternal full stop.

Two errors: 1. Trying to do too much, abandoning these efforts and collapsing back to either where one was before, a little above, or even less, or, worse yet, to nothing.
2. Not doing enough.

MENTAL PRAYER. I cannot stress the importance of this. 15 minutes each day minimum. Preferably first thing in the morning: ideally before people have got up, to avoid interruptions, which make 15 minutes take all that is left of the morning.

Mortification. You cannot become overcome unchastity without mortification, so how can you possibly expect to become a Saint without it. With regard to external mortifications, I say, only do them under obedience, to avoid the danger of vainglory. Internal mortifications (e.g. not answering back) you do not need the permission of a director for.

Pray before and after Mass. WHY DO PEOPLE GET UP AND WALK OUT IMMEDIATELY AFTER COMMUNION? DO THEY HAVE NO RESPECT???? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.........

Being angry with yourself after a sin is pride.

When you fall into a sin, immediately make an act of contrition, resolve to confess it (if it is mortal, or a venial sin that you wish to confess), then get up. The worst thing to do if you have fallen is not to get up.

"Never do anything that you cannot offer to God." - St John Vianney.

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. (KJV)

Personally I think it would be better for the economy if the Banks had a Holiday 365 days a year, with an extra one in leap years.

* * *

I turned the computer on, then forgot what I had put it on for. I put it on to blog.

I would like to ask for your prayers: I need strength; I would like to ask you also to pray for me for the strength to pray. Of course prayer is the one grace which we are certain God will never take away from us, so there can never be a time when we cannot pray; nevertheless there are times when we neglect to pray sufficiently: and this is disastrous, for we dare not slacken for one moment in our love for God.

I know that I have a great capacity for loving (I believe I am not saying this from pride); but the temptation to love oneself rather than God is an ever-present one - and that is the cause, if I may say so, of every problem in the entire world.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Novena for the Feast of the Nativity of Mary (8th September.)

30th August: Day 1.
31st August: Day 2.
1st September: Day 3.
2nd September: Day 4.
3rd September: Day 5. Also First Friday.
4th September: Day 6.
5th September: Day 7.
6th September: Day 8.
7th September: Day 9.

8th September: THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.

With permission of your confessor or spiritual director, you may wish to fast on the 7th of September.

I quote from St Alphonsus with regard to the Novenas of Marian Feasts.

The servants of Mary are very attentive and fervent in celebrating the Novenas of her Feasts; and during these the holy Virgin, full of love, dispenses to them innumerable and special blessings. One day St. Gertrude saw under the mantle of Mary innumerable souls, whom our Lady was looking upon with great affection, and she understood them to be those who, on the preceding days, had prepared themselves, by devout exercises, for the feast of the Assumption. The devotions to be used for the Novenas are the following:
1st. Mental prayer, morning and evening, with a visit to the most holy Sacrament, with the addition of an "Our Father," "Hail Mary," and "Glory be to the Father, &c.", repeated nine times.
2nd. Three visits to some image of Mary, thanking the Lord for the graces granted to her, and asking of the Virgin every time some special favor; and at one of these visits the prayer which is placed at the end of each of her feasts should be read.
3d. Make many acts of love, at least one hundred, or fifty, to Mary and to Jesus, for we can do nothing more pleasing to her, as she said to St. Bridget, than to love her Son: If you wish to become dear to me, love my Son Jesus: "Si te mihi vis devincire, ama filium meum Jesum."
4th. Read every day of the Novena, for a quarter of an hour, some book which treats of her glories.
5th. Make some external mortification of hair-cloth, discipline, &c., with fasting, or some abstinence at table from fruits or other agreeable food, at least in part; chewing also some bitter herb: and on the vigil of the feast fast on bread and water. But all this must be done always with the permission of a spiritual Father.

But better than all these are the practices in the Novenas of internal mortifications, as abstaining from the indulgence of curiosity, either through the eye or the ear; remaining retired and silent; obeying, not answering with impatience; bearing contradictions, and other things of the sort, which may be used with less danger of vainglory and greater merit; and for these, too, the permission of a director is not needed. The most useful exercise is to propose, at the beginning, the amending of some fault into which we are most liable to fall. And to this end it is well, at the end of each of the visits above named, to ask pardon for some past sin, renew the intention of avoiding it in future, and implore the help of Mary, in keeping this resolution. The honor most dear to the Virgin is the imitation of her virtues; wherefore it is well in every Novena to propose to one's self some special virtue of Mary, particularly adapted to the mystery; as for example, on the feast of the Conception, purity of intention; of her Nativity, the renewing of the spirit and the awakening from tepidity; of her Presentation, detachment from something to which we are most attached; of the Annunciation, humility in bearing contempt, &c.; of the Visitation, charity towards the neighbor, alms-giving, &c., or at least, the praying for sinners; of the Purification, obedience to superiors; and finally, of the Assumption, the practice of detachment, and doing all things as a preparation for death, living as if every day were to be the last. In this way the Novena will prove of great service.

6th. Besides the communion on the day of the feast, it is well to ask it more frequently of the spiritual Father on the days of the Novena. Father Segneri said that we cannot honor Mary better than with Jesus. For she herself, as Father Crasset relates, revealed to a holy soul that nothing dearer could be offered to her than the holy communion, for there Jesus Christ gathers in his soul the fruit of his passion. Hence it appears that the Virgin desires nothing from her servants more than the holy communion, saying, "Come, eat the bread and drink the wine that I have prepared for you." Finally, on the day of the feast after communion we should offer ourselves for the service of this divine mother by asking of her the grace of the virtue proposed in the Novena, or some other special favor. And it is well every year to set apart among others some feasts of the Virgin, to which we have the greatest devotion and tenderness, and make a particular preparation for this by dedicating ourselves anew, and in a more especial manner, to her service; choosing her for our Lady, advocate, and mother. Then we should ask pardon for our negligence in her service during the past year, promising her greater fidelity for the year that is to come. In a word, let us pray her to accept us as her servants, and obtain for us a holy death.

Well, pop goes another friendship - or one that apparently did not exist, since we had not, I am told, even the foundation of one.

Still this is the price one pays for devotion to the Truth.

It is extraordinary how everybody teaches their children always to tell the truth, while habitually giving bad example by living, cheating, stealing, swindling, etc., etc.

Then they have the gall to complain that their children don't respect them!

(Let me say that I am not talking about my own parents here; it is a general assertion that sprang from another train of thought.)

I have written this:



TRUTH.


No, there shall be no compromise on Truth,

Not though the sky should, loud with peals of thunder,

Fall to the earth, crash land and sea asunder,

Mankind in torment die, both men in youth



And men in age lie screaming flat in pain

Through their last agony: not though men rally

To Error's vast battalions forth to sally:

Truth shall not be denied, no, not for gain



Of comfort, friends, gold, peace, security,

Or whatsoever else! So they shall hate

Us - what do you expect?! - But we are free,

Devoted to the Truth; of thralls their fate:



But they prefer their slavery, forsooth.

No, there shall be no compromise on Truth.



(Feast of St Augustine, 2010.)

Bankers should read Rabelais

"Go your ways in the name of God, prosecute good enterprises, show your king what is amiss, and never counsel him with regard unto your own particular profit, for the public loss will swallow up the private benefit." - Book 1, Chap. 46.

I am particularly pleased with this essay:—

I







“How horrid,” the comment on my post began, “to read a very upsetting and homophobic response to this link. Not something I wanted to find on Facebook.” Another comment, addressed to another objector, wrote: “Quite frankly Stuart, you come across as homophobic as does the catholic adoption agency. It is difficult to see how anyone who is not homophobic can object to a gay couple’s right to adopt.”



Now I wish to discuss this word “homophobic,” and its cognate substantive, “homophobia.” In these days in which we live, wherein the habitual use of the human intelligence has sunk to its lowest, it is considered a triumph in argument to demonstrate that one’s opponent is homophobic or intolerant. “Homophobic” is taken to mean, by those who have forgotten how to think, or never learned, “intolerant of homosexual people”—as my comments were called. The notion that one can be tolerant of homosexual people and intolerant of homosexual acts, which are evil—and I shall explain why they are evil in a moment—eludes the nincompoops, who (since they have forgotten how to think) cannot distinguish between an action and its agent. I have written elsewhere of how the maxim that we should “hate the sin and love the sinner” has transmuted into “love the sin and hate the sinner.” For to hate a sin is to love its agent, and to prevent him from harming himself; and to love a sin is to hate its agent. Those who have scars along the length of their arms from the times they have harmed themselves in a more visible fashion will perhaps understand what I mean.



The first distinction to be made is between an action and its agent. It is true that an action can only be done by an agent, and it is from this, I think, that the confusion arises. Nevertheless they are separate.



There are so many first principles that need to be explained that I am not entirely sure where to begin. But it is necessary for our opponents to understand why we believe what we believe, and for them to understand that our objections are not the result of mere prejudice. Personally I think many of them do think our objections are but the fruit of prejudice; and if that were true, they would be right to object to our objections. But this arises from a misunderstanding.



It does not help when we try to explain our morality in such a way as not to offend our secular opponents. It means we miss out at least half of the reasoning necessary to defend our arguments, and consequently we fail. For example, to oppose euthanasia without mentioning the simple fact that it cannot be more charitable to put a man in hell than to allow him to endure temporal suffering—this can only arise from fear of offending others.



Every one of us is guilty of evil, myself (I think) of more evil than most. But the fact that we are all guilty of evil does not justify the evil we have done, or that we shall do. We are free to resist evil, and God will give us the grace necessary thereto if we pray for it. In order for an act to be subject to the laws of morality, it must be what theologians call “a human act,” and (in this life) it must be free. A human act, my manual of moral theology tells me, is one that proceeds from knowledge and free will, such as writing. A human act, or actus humanus, is to be distinguished from an act of man, or actus hominis—so that writing is a human act, while breathing is an act of man.



The requisite knowledge entails that of (1) the action, (2) the object of the action, and (3) the possibility of not acting or of acting otherwise. Knowledge of the action entails that the man must be aware of what he is doing, saying, or thinking. Let me explain the meaning of the phrase “the object of the action.” To be clear I should say what my manual of moral theology says: “The object of the action with all its proximate circumstances.” So for instance if a man shoots at another man, believing him to be a bear, and having no thought that it might not be a bear, then the man is not guilty of homicide. Indeed he is not guilty of anything, for it is no sin to shoot a bear.



This will be a good point, I think, at which to explain the difference between material and formal sin. Now let us suppose that our first man shot at the second, believing the second man to be a bear. He was guilty of nothing, but there was what is called a material sin of homicide. I repeat the man was not guilty of homicide, but the matter of homicide—i.e. the killing of a man—was there. In a second scenario, our first man shoots the other, knowing him to be a man. Here there is a formal sin of homicide—our first man incurs the guilt of murder. It is only formal sin that is, strictly speaking, sin; by material sin we mean that which would be a sin if it were known and willed. I hope I express myself clearly. Material sin is not culpable, at all: but it has the same consequences, broadly (and somewhat inaccurately) speaking, as formal sin does.



My third numbered point was the possibility of acting otherwise or not at all—for “Only when this possibility is recognized can there be free consent of the will, without which neither good nor evil deeds are imputable.”







The second requisite is free consent of the will. The only subdivision I shall mention here is that of perfectly and imperfectly voluntary—for an act to be perfectly voluntary there must be full knowledge and full consent; if either of these or both is to some degree lacking, the act will be imperfectly voluntary. If both are absent, the act is not voluntary at all.















Next—the imputability of human acts. “The imputability of a human act consists in this that one may be declared the free author of an action and its consequences and may be held responsible for the same.”



An act may be directly or indirectly voluntary. Indirectly voluntary means that it follows as a consequence of another act which is directly voluntary.



Directly voluntary acts are always imputed to the agent; indirectly voluntary are only attributed to the agent when there is question of an evil effect, and then only in certain circumstances, which do not concern our present purpose.







Obstacles to human acts include ignorance, which is often culpable, violence, fear, concupiscence, and habit, among others.











It should be clear from all of this that an act may in itself be evil and yet not attributable to the agent as evil—the agent may act in perfect innocence, but his act may, considered in the abstract, be wrong; it may even be very evil. For instance, none of my readers, I hope, will deny that homicide is very evil, and that if someone were alerted to the fact that our first man above was about to kill another man, however inadvertently, this third person would be bound to do what he could to prevent it—even though the first man were in all morals quite innocent.







But what has all this to do with homophobia?



















II







I do not deny—I do not know if many, or any, will deny—that many people who engage in homosexual activity are perfectly innocent of all wrongdoing. It is important, very important, to grasp the principle that if you do not know that something is wrong, and it does not occur to you that it may be wrong, you do nothing wrong. But if a real doubt (rather than a scruple) comes into your mind, you are bound to refrain from action, until you have settled the matter. For to act when to act may or may not be evil is to be willing to do something evil—and such a conscience is malicious.



While the matter is not as serious as that of an inadvertent homicide, it is nonetheless grave. We hold that there are certain acts, besides adultery, forbidden by the sixth commandment of God. The acts that I can immediately recall forbidden by this commandment are fornication, adultery, rape, criminal assault, incest, sacrilege, masturbation, sodomy, and bestiality. It also forbids all impurity in thought and word, and it even forbids, under pain of mortal sin, any directly voluntary consent whatsoever to the irregular motions of the flesh. (Here it is important to distinguish directly from indirectly voluntary.) Now with the majority of these sins the non-Catholic world has not yet gone so far in its descent to the abyss of amorality as to have denied the evil of most of these: it is true that fornication and masturbation seem to have been virtually struck off the list, and sodomy appears to be the next one to go.







Now discussion of these matters is not a pleasant subject. But I should make some attempt to explain why we believe these things are wrong. They all come under the one commandment. There is not a separate commandment forbidding adultery and sodomy. They are forbidden, we hold, by the one commandment: it is sins against chastity that are forbidden.



Sins of lust are forbidden because they do harm to those who indulge in them. They are forbidden on pain of mortal sin because they do great harm to those who indulge in them. Those who have been enslaved to these sins for any length of time, and examine themselves honestly, seeing themselves as they are, as God sees them, cannot possibly deny the harm that these sins do. They harm one’s health, physical and mental; they destroy families; they wreck people’s lives—and they wreck nobody’s life more than that of the sinner himself. They are addictive; it is easier to break an addiction to heroin than to break an addiction to sins against chastity. They lead to misery in this life and in the next. They make a man resemble a demon. They form the most abundant matter for sacramental confession by far; they are an express ticket to hell. As sins, they are greater than theft and than detraction. They are the curse of the proud.



I wish to expand on that phrase, “the curse of the proud.” Proud people are unchaste; humble people are chaste. The proud are intent upon their own will: that is what pride is. The humble sacrifice their own will. God abandons the proud to their own destruction. The humble he exalts. Proud people will fall into sins against chastity: God allows this in order for them to recognize their own pride, and their need of Him. Shame is necessary sometimes to conquer pride.



The consequences of sins against chastity, as enumerated by St Gregory, are these. Memorize this list. Love of self; hatred of God; love of the present life; horror of the future life; rashness; inconstancy; inconsiderateness; spiritual blindness. Memorize the list, and examine your conscience.







It should be borne in mind throughout all of this that I am discussing not homosexuality alone, but all sins against chastity. Those of us who have been the slaves of mortal sin know what it is: it is the greatest of all evils, and we do not desire anyone else to suffer it.











III







THE REMEDY







I write “the remedy;” I suspect nothing else will lay me more open to the infamous charge of “homophobia” than the use of this word. But I am referring to the means that should be taken by all those who have, or have ever had, the evil habit of impurity in any form.



The means to be undertaken in order to be freed from vices opposed to chastity are, first, prayer, humble, trusting, persevering, without which nothing can be accomplished—both vocal and mental prayer—; secondly, the Sacraments, if one is a Catholic, should be frequented. One should pray assiduously, and not neglect always to pray in temptation—as soon as one is conscious of the temptation, and until it goes away, one should, at least mentally, call upon the names of Jesus and Mary. Nor should one be discouraged after a fall, but endeavour to pick oneself up again immediately. Failing the Sacraments—if one cannot make use of sacramental confession: one should find someone, good, wise, and holy, to whom one will allow oneself to be accountable. There can be no chastity without humility; and I do not see a great deal of humility in those who use the word “homophobe” like the mallet of the March Hare.



Remember that Mary is the refuge of sinners, and there is no-one who, if he does but turn to her, will not be assisted by her with graces beyond his dreaming.







IV







A few words on the initial comments I quoted at the beginning. First, the word homophobic is used derogatorily. If we used it, we should use it to mean someone who was intolerant of homosexual people (as my comments were called). Our opponents use it, however, to mean someone who is intolerant of homosexual acts.



In these matters there seems usually to be a struggle with conscience, expressed outwardly in violent terms. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” It is this much protesting that should perhaps concern us most deeply.



If the word homophobic does indeed mean somebody who is opposed to homosexual acts, and not someone who is “intolerant of homosexual people,” then yes, we are homophobic.







There is a certain irony, I think, in the calling of those who have same-sex attraction, and are striving to live chastely, “homophobic”—for these people are indeed intolerant of homosexual acts, and none, I think, more so than they. They will, of course, oppose such things as adoption by homosexual couples.



But no-one ever mentions these people.



I wonder why.











(26th August, 2010.)

:(

My own sinfulness saddens me.

I have been given many graces today - some crosses and humiliations.

I am very tired. A grace-full day.

The world really is pretty terrifying sometimes.

This is disturbing - not the final outcome, which is good, but that it happened at all.

I link to the story of the Pope and the Teddy Bear, and to the story of a remarkable grace:

The Pope and the Teddy Bear
Man reconciles with Church after 80 years

On Ignorance of History

Edit
On Ignorance of History
by David Mitchell on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 at 20:17

I make no pretence to a sufficiently deep or sufficiently broad knowledge of History; but I would not dare to write this article if I were not making some attempts to further and to deepen my own historical knowledge.







I believe that the knowledge of our own history is important, for many reasons; but I believe it to be of particular importance at the present time, in which we are witnessing before our very eyes the apparent collapse of the West—but even now it is not too late to save it.







I hope I shall be forgiven for saying that if we do not understand our fathers, we cannot fully understand ourselves. I do not mean that all that has happened in the past is of equal importance, or that we need to know every action and event that has taken place since the beginning of time. I mean that we need to know certain things in order to understand other things. We cannot understand the breakdown of Western civilization, which we are witnessing, if we do not know what that civilization is. We cannot know what that civilization is if we do not know what made that civilization—to wit, if we do not know what the Roman Empire was (from which we all derive), and what the Catholic Church, I do not say *was*, but *is*—for She exists still, and indeed in eternity. We need to understand the Catholic Church in order to understand Islam, for Islam is a perversion of Catholicism, and we need to understand the Catholic Church in order to understand those denominations that have broken off from her, but to whom they owe their origin, and without whose existence they simply could not be. We need to understand the Catholic Church in order to understand the New Atheism which is a consequence of the shipwreck of five hundred years ago. It is not necessary to an understanding of the Church, or the Empire, or the West in general, that we ourselves be of the Faith, for our province here is not that of Theology but that of History. We are dealing with matters of demonstrable historical fact. Of course there are also many factors in History upon which we cannot be sure, but this does not counteract my general assertion.







I wish to lay an especial stress upon *religious* history: in particular, that of the Catholic Church, which preserved all that could be preserved of the Roman Empire in the decline of that Empire, and which has renewed, and continues to renew, the spiritual life of the world—*not* because I believe that that Church is the true one, but because without understanding that Church, we cannot understand what has been in Europe. The two primary questions of history, as Belloc remarks on the first page of *How the Reformation Happened*, are the conversion of the Roman Empire to Catholicism, and the religious breakdown of the sixteenth century. It is not my place in this short essay to discuss how these things came to be: rather, I wish to affirm that these were great *spiritual* changes—they affected most profoundly the *minds* of men—and it is in the minds of men that reality is most living. I wish people more strongly appreciated the place of the *mind* in human history: the importance of *ideas*.







We may use the word *doctrine* if we prefer it to *ideas*. If we particularly dislike a set of ideas, we call it an *ideology*.







I wish more people appreciated the power of ideas. Ideas are far more powerful than dynamite, and ten thousand times as dangerous. All ideas are not equal; nor, it seems to me, is a man free to hold any ideas he pleases. Some ideas are good; other ideas are evil. If one idea is good, its contradictory is evil. Are we free to hold beliefs which are evil? If we hold the strange doctrine of complete freedom of thought, we must conclude that we are. But while many people will praise intellectual freedom—without making it clear what it is that they wish to be free *from*—few take their notion of mental freedom quite that far—as yet.







Now I do not think that when a person uses the phrase "ignorance of history," we should automatically accuse him of "mere name-calling." *Mere* is a very strong word in any case. For it may be that he is not in the act of addressing a meaningless contumely at his adversary. He may in fact be making the criticism that his opponent is ignorant of History—or, at any rate, of *some* history—or of that history which relates to the subject in question, and which either his opponent ought to know or the knowledge of which would enlighten his opponent. He may be right or wrong in supposing that this knowledge—real or imaginary knowledge—will enlighten his opponent-in-argument; but to accuse him of "mere name-calling" appears to me to be unjust and inaccurate.



It is a great error in historiography—I understand that Gibbon is notorious for this—to neglect the spiritual state of men. It derives, I suppose, from a materialist outlook on the world: the idea that those things only are real which can be seen, heard, felt, smelt, and tasted. That matter alone is, and—logically—that mind, soul, spirit, therefore are not. In our day hardly anybody will deny the existence of the mind, though they may deny the soul because they do not know what a soul is. This brings to my mind the epigram of Belloc's:







ON PUGLEY: A DON



Pugley denies the soul? Why, so do I



The soul, of Pugley, heartily deny.







There are many, I imagine, who believe in spirits of one kind or another. But we are not wholly freed from the materialist outlook: indeed in some quarters it seems to be gaining—in works on popular science, for example, which are often written from an atheist materialist perspective. In such works, and sometimes in documentaries on television, it is *presumed* that the reader or viewer, being a Cultivated Fellow, is an atheist materialist—or he is addressed as such. It is as if it has been demonstrably proved that Nothing can turn itself into Something (O miracle of miracles!) [1], and that what is not material does not exist. The non-material will escape the observation of the scientist—*whose business it is to examine material objects closely*—for it is not the business of physical science to observe immaterial things! It is the business of physical science to observe *material* things—and the observation and measurement of material things and their properties requires no especial talent. [2] And in the close observation of matter, it is natural that *if* one simultaneously neglects to observe that which is spiritual (i.e. not material), then one will magnify the importance of matter and proportionately diminish that of spirit. It does not logically follow from the fact of one's failure to see something that that thing is not there.







Now this *need* not be the case. There is no intrinsic reason why practitioners of physical science should be spiritually blind; and not all scientists are. I fear that the less intelligent of my readers will interpret this part of my essay as an attack upon science. It is not that at all. It is an observation of an historical trend upon the part of some persons. If the spiritual state of the scientist is healthy—that is, if he does not neglect the spiritual life—his scientific work will be healthy and beneficial. But when his scientific work, his material life, becomes a substitute for his spiritual life, then will the former become disordered and out of touch with reality.







By and large, the scientific work [3] undertaken in the high intellectual life of the Middle Ages was undertaken in such an environment. And later, Herschel (who discovered that Uranus was a planet and not a star); that great Catholic scientist Galileo (whose condemnation did not derive from "the Catholic Church" and which was not for "holding heretical beliefs," as I was once misinformed in a University lecture); Mendel (the Augustinian monk); Pasteur (a convert); the great Jesuit Father Athanasius Kircher; the Catholic priest Fr McEnery (1796-1841), the founder of modern Anthropology—whose discoveries at Torbay were suppressed by those scientists (not churchmen) who opposed him, and suppressed so successfully that almost nobody has heard of him, and he does not even have a Wikipedia article—; and a myriad of further names I might add, are sufficient to demonstrate that there is no intrinsic contradiction between Science and Faith. There may be a conflict between Science and Victorian English Protestantism (as witness the silencing of Dr McEnery); and perhaps this is part of the difficulty with those who think that science has exploded theology: that they call Victorian English Protestantism by such silly names as "the foundations of Western religion."







So much for those who do not think, but merely repeat, like parrots, what others have told them.







When I say "history," I have in mind not only those events of importance which have happened in the past, but the human (and the deeper than human) motives which led to those events. I also have in mind the conception that there is a true and a false history. Our historical writing in English has, with certain exceptions, particularly before History became a scientific study, been warped by an anti-Catholic bias so strong that it has falsified history. A man may, conceivably and at least in theory, be biased against the Catholic Church and yet write true history—but when his bias leads him so to distort events as to render his narration the narration of things very different from those which actually occurred (as witness the amazing distortion of the business of Alaric), then he is not writing true history. If anybody doubts that our official historians of once upon a time falsified history, let him undertake the following steps. Let him read the official historians, and let him read the original documents. Then I shall be prepared to listen to him; and if he can prove himself to be right, I shall accept his argument. Since, however, there is a great cleft between the original documents and our traditionally accepted historians, he will not succeed. Fortunately this school of history can no longer be taken seriously. It has been debunked. But it held sway for so long that its residual scum is still with us.







For there are many ways of keeping people ignorant of history. One is this method of teaching them false history. Another is teaching them parts of history, and ignoring vast important tracts, as is done at the present time in the schools of this country. Another is by a false sense of proportion: setting such importance on one unimportant element, and skimming over something else which is of very great importance. All these are but a few of the many various methods of telling a lie.







In order to extricate myself from the rut of my own ignorance I am endeavouring, as I said at the beginning, to educate myself in the subject of History—a subject which seems to me to be of much more importance than I had realized (though I knew it was important), if we are to understand the downfall we witness around us. I repeat, I do not mean by History all that has happened: I mean that which has made us what we are. For if we do not know how and why we have come to be what we are, then surely we cannot understand ourselves, at least not fully; neither can we understand whither we are led. Do you not agree?



(18th August, 2010.)







[1] The only alternative would be that the universe is uncreated and exists in eternity—yet the doctrine of the eternity of the universe is never asserted at the present day. This would make the universe into the Supreme Being, for nothing would then be greater than the universe.



[2] Nor does the attempt to draw conclusions from them (which may be right or wrong) require any intellectual or creative ability beyond that of any normal man - though the inference of correct conclusions may in some circumstances be the outward expression of a genius lurking behind.

Also, a man does not become more or less intelligent, or right in his judgement of morality, of theology, of the metaphysic, etc., by virtue of being "a famous scientist." There is no correlation between fame and intelligence, nor between fame and scientific ability. But my point is the materialist consequence to the soul of the isolation of what is (or used to be) called the Scientific Method.



[3] Which may be read of in the somewhat unequal book *God's Philosophers* by James Hannam (Icon Books, 2009).

I have finished "The Glories of Mary." I am currently studying "How the Reformation Happened:" I am trying to transfer all the history in the book into my memory, so that I actually *know* it and don't need to look everything up and feel that I do not have a sure knowledge of the matter.
I am rather tired; I went to bed late last night.

I am very very tired.

Domine, valde malus sum. Terreo propter peccata mea: dignus enim inferno sum. Quaero, tamen, gratiam saltem hanc: ut eam ad magnum sacramentum Poenitentiae, quo pax tua reddetur mihi. Precor quoque salutem; Domine, tu creasti me; ne permittas me damnari. Desidero te videre. Stultissimus fui et pessimus, sed misericordia tua (O magnopere mirandum!) excedit peccata mea, plus quam exprimere possum. Te precor, fac me bonum virum. Scis, Domine Salvator meus, animam meam intus vulneratam et fragilem. Superbus sum, da mihi ergo humilitatem; libidinosus sum, da mihi ergo castitatem; gulosus, da mihi ergo temperantiam: sed da quoque, ut sciam defecta mea, et ea superem. Sine te nihil possum, Domine, nihil: tecum possum omnia - si quidem fas dicere est, dicam: plus quam omnia.

O meus amor, verum (eheu!) est me te non sicut meres amavisse: nolo tibi offerre latebras; O Domine Deus, te amabo posthac usque ad mortem cum cuncta quae in me sunt. Ne permittas me, itero, separari a te ob quamlibet rationem in hoc mundo. Munde! En mundus immundus! Eum despicio et sperno; inimicus enim meus hic mundus. Una dies erit, ubi tandem moriar... Rogo tantum, illa ut in die tu me inferras in curias tuas celestias. Magnam questionem forsan, sed tu creasti me ad hoc. Miserere mihi, Domine; miserere mihi. Metuo justitiam tuam, sed Misericordia ipsa es tu, itaque spero in te. Domine, in te speravi: non confundar in aeternum. Si lacrimare non possum ob duritiam cordis mei, carissime Redemptor, accipe nihilominus cor meum quod tanta fatuitate fregi: tu enim, ac tu solus, id medicari potes. In tua potestate, cuius non est finis, confidam - non in memetipsum.


Tibi gratias ago ob creationem meam, et ob omnes gratias quibus me locupletavisti, praesertim conversionem meam, et cruces mihi datas, quas non bene accepi. Misericordiam, Domine, rogo; sed ne permittas me in ea presumere. Te egeo, te amo. Ne permittas me te umquam oblivisci: principium finis esset. Minime: volo te sequi usque ad mortem, sed timeo ne cadam. Tecum stabo in omni tempestate. Refugium meum, solatium meum, spes mea, amor meus: misericordiam tuam rogo te, Domine: miserere mei, quoniam plena sum superbia et peccato. Sana me. Amen."

Tomorrow is St Laurence's day. Or is it Lawrence? I am tired.

Some very silly things have happened today. There have been some irrational outbursts of anger, inexplicable but for spite, pride, and fear; and there have been injustices.

It vexes me.

Please would you pray for sanabituranima.

I hope you have had a pleasant feast of Our Lady of the Snows (o.r.) or The Dedication of the Basilica of St Mary Major. They are the same feast.

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Happy birthday, sanabituranima.

I have walked a very long walk today, and I am exhausted. I am going to pray and I shall probably be in bed at about 10.30.

Happy St Alphonsus Liguori Day (old rite)!

Important feasts - that means those I can remember - in the near future are St John Vianney, 4th August, new rite (I don't know his feast in the old rite); Transfiguration, 6th August; and the ASSUMPTION on the 15th, of course. The 16th is St Joachim in the old rite. I believe there is another Marian feast on the 22nd - either her Queenship or Maternity. I have written what I can remember.

I have been reading "The Glories of Mary." It is beautiful. I needed to take a break, however, when I got to a footnote which had the Latin for "was made obedient unto death" in it: "factus oboediens usque ad mortem."

St Alphonsus Liguori

Zeal was once regarded as a virtue. Now, when it is thought of at all (one hardly experiences it, it seems), it is looked upon almost as a vice—so that the word zealot has become, by means of a false etymology, an insult. What people who use words like this would have made of a titanic figure such as St Paul, or St Francis Xavier, or St Ignatius Loyola, or St Francis de Sales, or St Alphonsus Liguori, I dread to think. Do the insulters have any convictions of their own? Do they have any passion? I don’t know. I would have thought most people did. But since so many people in this our time seem to think that all opinions are equal—they do not seem to acknowledge the notion of a conviction, still less of a conscience of reality—I cannot help but doubt it.
St Alphonsus Mary Anthony John Cosmas Damian Michael Gaspard de’ Liguori is one of the greatest of the Saints. He is a Doctor of the Church, and he has the title Doctor Zelantissimus. This title is a compliment. Those who think that zeal is an evil are at best unintelligent. Look at the achievements of St Francis de Sales, or St Francis Xavier! Can anybody seriously maintain that the fruits of their zeal had an evil origin? I fear that some people can.
St Alphonsus was born in 1696, and died in 1787. In his very long life he achieved so much that anyone may look upon his achievement and tremble. If the historians of the future are as stupid as certain historians of recent centuries, no doubt they will come to deny that St Alphonsus did all that he in fact did, and will concoct fairytales of composite authorship, pseudonyms, and mythology. Let us hope that they are not so.
I shall write what I can remember about St Alphonsus. His father was a particularly irascible man; and I should not be surprised if the scruples with which the Saint was tormented throughout his life had his source in his earthly father: for it is very difficult not to project certain aspects of one’s earthly father onto one’s Heavenly Father, at least subconsciously. St Alphonsus would not have done this consciously. The Saint’s father was also "passionately fond of music,"[1] and so St Alphonsus became proficient on the harpsichord, practising for three hours a day. He obtained two doctorates (in Canon and Civil Law) at the age of sixteen, when he began to practise as a lawyer. He never appeared in court without having previously heard Mass. It is said—I do not know whether it is true or false—that he never lost a case, until his very last. The story is that he misinterpreted a document—he misread it, so that he understood it to mean the exact opposite of what it actually said: a mistake very easy to make. He was most upset, I think because he feared that people would have attributed his error to malice and fraud instead of a mere human error. He exclaimed, “World, I know you now! Courts, you shall never see me more!”
He was about thirty. Against the wishes of his father (who emitted a noise almost like a scream when he saw his son for the first time in clerical dress) he was ordained priest; fortunately the Saint’s mother managed to reconcile them after a time. It may have been when the Saint’s father first heard him preach that he finally accepted his son’s vocation. On various occasions St Alphonsus’s parents (it may have been his father) had endeavoured to get him to marry various women; on one occasion St Alphonsus disdained even to look at his proposed spouse: I believe they were playing the harpsichord together, probably at his father’s request. I believe there were three women (on separate occasions!) the Saints’ father wanted him to marry: but it was not to be. The Saint was meant to be a priest, and he knew it: and for three days he did not eat. He shut himself in his room for three days: he did not eat, and spoke to no one. His mother may have made some attempt to get him to eat an apple: whether this attempt succeeded I do not remember. It was the hour for his endurance of the anguish of the agony.
The Saint’s devotional life was exceptional. He had great devotion to the Eucharist, and to Our Blessed Mother. He heard Mass every day, confessed and communicated every Saturday; he fasted on bread and water every Saturday in honour of Our Lady; he said not only the Divine Office, but also the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, every day; his preparation and thanksgiving for Mass, as well as his offering up of the Sacrifice, lasted most of the morning; he said the Angelus (or Regina Cæli) each day, morning, noon, and evening—he would kneel in the street at the Angelus bell. He made a visit to the Blessed Sacrament every evening.
His mortifications were extreme—in youth, I think he came near to suffering death on account of excess in this matter: an effective cure for pride. He was more devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, perhaps than any man before or since, except Her own family, and perhaps St Louis de Montfort. St Alphonsus "slept the very minimum required for human existence." [2]
The Saint wrote book after book after book, in his spare half-hours. His most famous work is Le Glorie di Maria, known in English, of course, as The Glories of Mary. His next most important work is perhaps Theologia Moralis, a vast multi-volume work that revolutionized Catholic moral theology. St Alphonsus himself appears to have read every important Catholic book ever produced. He spent vast amounts of time in prayer and in study. He ate no more than he needed to. He also made several vows during his life—those that spring immediately to mind are those not to drink wine at table, to say a 15-decade Rosary every day, and what Tannoja called “that appalling vow:” never deliberately to waste a moment of time. He kept that vow, and not a moment of his life was wasted. How much time we waste! But to observe the life of this man is to see what it is to use all the time that is given to us as it is meant to be used. What would the world not be if everyone used the time given them as they were meant to use it!
St Alphonsus wrote much, and much has been written about him. The more you read him, and the more you read about him, the better you get to know him: and he is a character who can really be known. I think he deserves to be better known than he is.

1st August, 2010

[1] Catholic Encyclopedia.
[2] Tannoja's Life of St Alphonsus.