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ASH
WEDNESDAY
LENT 2014
Today's Martyrology
EVERY JEW …
The loss of Language — and other paradigms — in the Catholic
Church
We
thought that would capture your attention. But you will
note the ellipsis ( … ) following the title, so allow us
to complete the sentence:
Every Jew knows how to pray in Hebrew,
just as every Muslim knows how to pray in
Arabic.
Both are essential idioms in their
respective religions, although most Jews, like most Muslims,
do not speak, or largely understand either language. It
is unique to — as it were, totally specific and carefully
preserved identifying markers inseparable from,
characteristic of, and exclusively pertaining to
— their respective religions. Even Reform Jews know the
Sh'ma Yisrael, just as the most culturally assimilated
Muslim knows the Du'aa for Salah.
It is important to understand that
Arabic is only specific to Arabia and is not
the lingua franca of other Muslim states. Hebrew is only
specific to Israel and is not the native tongue
of the Diaspora. We are agreed upon this, yes? The language
of prayer is different from the language spoken outside
the place of worship. Judaism clung to Hebrew. Islam clung
to Arabic.
Why, then, has the Catholic Church jettisoned
Latin as the language specific to prayer in collective,
and often private worship?
Why is Latin a taboo, unlike Hebrew
and Arabic? You will be hard-pressed to find a Catholic
fluent in Latin, and much more to the point, any
ecclesiastic (priest, bishop, and cardinal) who any longer
has facility with Latin. Our own "Cardinal Sean" (as he
prefers to be called) is fluent in Spanish, but I highly
doubt that he could conjugate the simplest Latin verb. It
is no longer taught in seminaries (despite
Can. 249 requiring it), and no longer perpetuated in
the Church itself at its highest levels. The language that
has been nearly synonymous with the Catholic Church for
over 2000 years has become forgotten (yes, and verboten)
in less than 50.
North Korea as the Paradigm of the
Policy to Abolish Catholic Ecclesiastical Language:
specifically, Latin
The period at which the people of
North Korea became totally sequestered from the world and
the inception of the Novus Ordo (New Order) Mass
(concomitantly with the abolition of the centuries old
Tridentine Mass) coincides within a 10 year margin.
Important — and potent — analogies obtain:
Having been both categorically and systematically
indoctrinated — crushed under an iron fist with no tolerance
for dissent or dismay, North Koreans subsequently know nothing
other than what their brutal regime propagates and allows
them to know. This concerns such quotidian features as whether
the earth is round, the notion of free speech, and the freedom
of thought.
"The Three-Generations Punishment"
as a Paradigm
150,000 to 200,000 North Koreans were
born in, live, and will die in concentration camps under
North Korea's policy of deterrence through "three generations
of punishment": the criminal together with his entire family,
and the following two entire generations that will be born
— and die — in the prison camps: in other words, the primary
“malefactor”, his children, and their children. If there
IS a fourth generation, it will possess no knowledge of
anything whatever from posterity and outside the concentration
camps. It is their world. At least two complete generations
born within it will not know of any other kind of existence,
and will understand their own miserable existence as “normal”.
Through this policy of “Three generations of Punishment”,
there is no possible transmission of any knowledge apart
from what is acquired (indoctrinated) in the camp itself.
All possibility of dissidence is totally expunged, for there
is knowledge of nothing from which to dissent.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church subsequent to
the “policies” enacted following Vatican II, appear to have
taken a similar approach in the way of language, worship,
tradition, and the Mass itself. Within three generations,
Catholics have largely lost (or more accurately, have been
systematically deprived of the transmission of) what pertains
to the unique Catholic identity that had been taught and
lived for centuries prior to the catastrophe that has been
euphemized as “Vatican II”. Centuries of teaching, worship,
and tradition were categorically abolished and anything
verging on “residual” was not allowed to emerge again. In
may ways, it was not so much abolished as “stamped out”
— much as any criticism of the "Dear Leader" was met with
a quick and final “dismissal”, so was any criticism of “the
Spirit of Vatican II” a specter even more ghastly and destructive
than the actual corpus itself.
Not only was a millennia old language abolished as
unacceptable anymore, but nearly every tradition and concept
that was uniquely Catholic was peremptorily suppressed,
tossed out, and ultimately forgotten … such that the last
“malefactor” who breached the policy, were he still alive,
would no longer recognize the institution in which he was
nurtured — and the fourth generation Catholic would no longer
recognize the last malefactor and would not understand his
language, let alone his gestures and manner of living. Indeed,
the physical structure itself in which the celebration morphed
from a Mass to a Prayer-Space, would itself become unrecognizable
to either. The spires ascending to God would seem archaic
and meaningless beside the Bauhaus flat, unadorned, and
indistinguishable building that could as well be a synagogue,
a mortuary, or an office building and which has a “presider”
instead of a “priest” (a now unacceptable patriarchal image
of Christ).
North Korea succeeded in extinguishing, obliterating
all memory of anything that preceded it. And so did Vatican
II. Despite the motu proprio Summum Pontificum,
allowing the Tridentine Mass to be said by any priest without
“permission” from his ordinary (bishop), virtually any attempt
to celebrate it is met with hostility and every possible
impediment. Vatican II had spoken … much as the Dear Leader
had spoken, and the matter was settled and irreversible.
Another
paradigm ...
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Dresden as another Paradigm
of the aftermath of Vatican
II
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Dresden at the turn of the century
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Dresden less than 50 years later
in 1945
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Irreversible also is the damage. It is rather like
a vignette of the city of Dresden before and after its infamous
fire-bombing in World War II. The name was retained, but
it designated utter ruin.
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Vatican II as another
Paradigm
of the aftermath of Dresden
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A Catholic Cathedral
less than 50 years
after Vatican II
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A Catholic Church at the turn
of the century
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“The Eternal President of the Republic”
Kim Il-sung (his formal title, despite being dead 10 years
now and counting) and Kim-Jong-il (dead now 3 years and
counting) and his porculent, maniacal son Kim Jong-un have
made North Korea another Dresden. And if we look at it closely
and without bias, so did Vatican II make a once flourishing
Catholic culture the mere detritus of another Dresden called
the City of Man which is still being dismantled and destroyed
as we watch — without any outrage ... or even wonder.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
Printable PDF Version
"What is Holiness?"
Holiness — sanctity — is simply the conformity of the
will to the will of God.
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If you listen to no other homily on being
a Catholic and your obligation to love God
and your neighbor ... listen
to this:
The Law of Love by Archbishop Fulton
Sheen |
The Complete Martyrology
in
English
ROMAN MARTYROLOGY
Saturday March 8th
in the Year of Grace 2014
HOLY SEASON OF LENT
This Day, the Eighth Day of March
At Granada, in Spain, St. John of God,
founder of the Order of the Brothers Hospitallers, celebrated for his
mercy to the poor, and his contempt of self. Pope Leo XIII declared
him Heavenly patron of hospitals and the infirm.
At Antinous, a city of Egypt, the birthday of
the holy martyr Philemon, and the deacon
Apollonius. As they firmly refused to sacrifice to the idols
when they were apprehended and brought before the judge, they had their
heels transpierced, were barbarously dragged through the city, and finally
consummated their martyrdom by the edge of the sword.
Also, in the same place, the passion of the Saints
Arian, governor, Theoticus and three others, who were submerged
in the sea by order of the judge. Their bodies were brought to the shore
by dolphins.
At Nicomedia, St. Quinctilis, bishop and martyr.
At Carthage, St. Pontius, deacon of bishop
St. Cyprian, who remained in banishment with him until his death, and
composed an excellent history of his life and martyrdom. By ever glorifying
God in his own sufferings, he merited the crown of life.
Also in Africa, the Saints Cyril, bishop, Rogatus,
Felix, another Rogatus, Beata, Herenia, Felicitas, Urbanus, Sylvanus,
and Mamillus.
At Toledo, in Spain, the demise of blessed Julian,
bishop and confessor, most celebrated for his sanctity and learning.
In England, St. Felix, bishop, who converted
the East-Angles to the faith.
And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors,
and holy virgins.
Omnes sancti Mártyres,
oráte pro nobis. ("All ye Holy Martyrs, pray for us", from the
Litaniae Sanctorum, the Litany of the Saints)
Response: Thanks be to God.
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Roman Martyrology by Month
Why the Martyrs Matter
Each day we bring
you a calendar, a list really, of the holy Martyrs
who had suffered and died for Christ, for His Bride
the Church, and for our holy Catholic Faith; men
and women for whom — and well they knew — their
Profession of Faith would cost them their lives.
They could have repudiated all three (Christ, Church,
and Catholic Faith) and kept their lives for a short
time longer (even the lapsi only postponed
their death — and at so great a cost!).1
What would motivate men, women, even children and
entire families to willingly undergo the most evil
and painfully devised tortures; to suffer death
rather than denial?
Why did they not renounce their Catholic Faith when
the first flame licked at their feet, after the
first eye was plucked out, or after they were “baptized”
in mockery by boiling water or molten lead poured
over their heads? Why did they not flee to offer
incense to the pagan gods since such a ritual concession
would be merely perfunctory, having been done, after
all, under duress, exacted by the compulsion of
the state? What is a little burned incense and a
few words uttered without conviction, compared to
your own life and the lives of those you love? Surely
God knows that you are merely placating the state
with empty gestures …
Did they love their wives, husbands, children —
their mothers, fathers and friends less than we
do? Did they value their own lives less? Were they
less sensitive to pain than we are? In a word, what
did they possess that we do not?
Nothing. They possessed what we ourselves are given
in the Sacrament of Confirmation — but cleaved to
it in far greater measure than we do: Faith and
faithfulness; fortitude and valor, uncompromising
belief in the invincible reality of God, of life
eternal in Him for the faithful, of damnation everlasting
apart from Him for the unfaithful; of the ephemerality
of this passing world and all within it, and lives
lived in total accord with that adamant belief.
We are the Martyrs to come. What made them so will
make us so. What they suffered we will suffer. What
they died for, we will die for. If only we will!
For most us, life will be a bloodless martyrdom,
a suffering for Christ, for the sake of Christ,
for the sake of the Church in a thousand ways outside
the arena. The road to Heaven is lined on both sides
with Crosses, and upon the Crosses people, people
who suffered unknown to the world, but known to
God. Loveless marriages. Injustices on all sides.
Poverty. Illness. Old age. Dependency. They are
the cruciform! Those whose lives became Crosses
because they would not flee God, the Church, the
call to, the demand for, holiness in the most ordinary
things of life made extraordinary through the grace
of God. The Martyrology we celebrate each day is
just a vignette, a small, immeasurably small sampling
of the martyrdom that has been the lives of countless
men and women whom Christ and the Angels know, but
whom the world does not know.
“Exemplum enim dedi vobis”,
Christ said to His Apostles
2. “I have given
you an example.” And His Martyrs give one
to us — and that is why the Martyrs matter.
Joseph Mary del Campos
Editor, Boston Catholic Journal
Note: We suggest that you explore our newly
edited and revised
"De SS. Martyrum Cruciatibus — The Torments
and Tortures of the Christian Martyrs" for an
in-depth historical account of the sufferings of
the Martyrs.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY
by
J. Cardinal Gibbons,
Archbishop of Baltimore
THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY is an official
and accredited record, on the pages of which are
set forth in simple and brief, but impressive words,
the glorious deeds of the Soldiers of Christ in
all ages of the Church; of the illustrious Heroes
and Heroines of the Cross, whom her solemn verdict
has beatified or canonized. In making up this long
roll of honor, the Church has been actuated by that
instinctive wisdom with which the Spirit of God,
who abides in her and teaches her all truth, has
endowed her, and which permeates through and guides
all her actions. She is the Spouse of Christ, without
spot or wrinkle or blemish, wholly glorious and
undefiled, whom He loved, for whom He died, and
to whom He promised the Spirit of Truth, to comfort
her in her dreary pilgrimage through this valley
of tears, and to abide with her forever. She is
one with Him in Spirit and in love, she is subject
to Him in all things; she loves what He loves, she
teaches and practices what He commands.
If the world
has its "Legions of Honor," why should not also
the Church of the Living God, the pillar and the
ground of the truth? If men who have been stained
with blood, and women who have been tainted with
vice, have had their memory consecrated in prose
and in verse, and monuments erected to their memory,
because they exhibited extraordinary talents, achieved
great success, or were, to a greater or less extent,
benefactors of their race in the temporal order,
which passeth away, why should not the true Heroes
and Heroines of Jesus, who, imitating His example,
have overcome themselves, risen superior to and
trampled upon the world, have aspired, in all their
thoughts, words, and actions, to a heavenly crown,
and have moreover labored with disinterested zeal
and self-forgetting love for the good of their fellow-men,
have their memories likewise consecrated and embalmed
in the minds and hearts of the people of God? If
time have its heroes, why should not eternity; if
man, why should not God? "Thy friends, O Lord, are
exceedingly honored; their principality is exceedingly
exalted." Whom His Father so dearly loved, the world
crucified; whom the world neglects, despises, and
crucifies, God, through His Church, exceedingly
honors and exalts. Their praises are sung forth,
with jubilation of heart, in the Church of God for
ages on ages.
The wisdom
of the Church of God in honoring her Saints is equaled
only by the great utility of the practice thus consecrated.
The Saints are not merely heroes; they are models.
Christ lived in them, and Christ yet speaks through
them. They were the living temples of the Holy Ghost,
in whose mortal bodies dwelt all the riches of His
wisdom and grace. They were in life consecrated
human exemplars of divine excellence and perfection.
Their example still appeals to our minds and to
our hearts, more eloquently even than did their
words to the men of their own generation, while
they were in the tabernacle of the flesh. Though
dead, they still speak. Their relics are instinct
with sanctity, and through them they continue to
breathe forth the sweet odor of Christ. The immortality
into which they have entered still lingers in their
bones, and seems to breathe in their mortal remains.
As many an ardent, spirit has been induced to rush
to the cannon's mouth by reading the exploits of
earthly heroes, so many a generous Christian soul
has been fired with heavenly ardor, and been impelled
to rush to the crown of martyrdom, by reading the
lives and heroic achievements of the Saints and
Martyrs of Christ. Example, in its silent appeal,
is more potent in its influence on the human heart
and conduct than are words in their most eloquent
utterances.
The Church
knows and feels all this, in the Spirit of God with
whom she is replenished ; and hence she sets forth,
with holy joy and exultant hope, her bright and
ever-increasing Calendar of Sanctity of just men
and women made perfect and rendered glorious, under
her unearthly and sublime teachings. In reading
this roll of consecrated holiness, our instinctive
conclusion is, precisely that which the great soul
of St. Augustine reached at the very crisis of his
life, the moment of his conversion "If other men
like me have attained to such sanctity, why not
I? Shall the poor, the afflicted, the despised of
the World, bear away the palm of victory, the crown
of immortality, while I lie buried in my sloth and
dead in my sins, and thus lose the brilliant and
glorious mansion already prepared for me in heaven?
Shall all the gifts, which God has lavished upon
me, be ingloriously spent and foolishly wasted,
in the petty contest for this world's evanescent
honors and riches, while the poor and contemned
lay up treasures in heaven, and secure the prize
of immortal glory? Shall others be the friends of
God, whom He delights to honor, while I alone remain
His enemy, and an alien from His blessed Kingdom?"
It is a consoling
evidence of progress in the spiritual life in this
country to find the Martyrology here published,
for the first time, in English, and thereby made
accessible, in its rich treasures of Sanctity, to
all classes of our population. It will prove highly
edifying and useful, not only to the members of
our numerous religious Communities of both sexes,
but also to the laity generally. Every day has here
its record of Sanctity; and there is scarcely a
Christian, no matter how lowly or how much occupied,
who may not be able to daily peruse, with faith
and with great profit, the brief page of each day's
models of Holiness. These belong to all classes
and callings of life; from the throne to the hovel,
from the Pontiff to the lowest cleric, from the
philosopher to the peasant, from the busy walks
of life to the dreary wastes of the desert.
Let all, then,
procure and read daily the appropriate portions
of this Martyrology. Its daily and pious perusal
will console us in affliction, will animate us in
despondency, will make our souls glow with the love
of God in coldness, and will lift up our minds and
hearts from this dull and ever-changing earth to
the bright and everlasting mansions prepared for
us in Heaven!
Imprimatur,
J. Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Baltimore, Maryland
1916
Printable PDF
Version
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1
The Lapsi were
early Catholics who renounced the Faith and either
sacrificed to the Roman gods by edict from the emperor,
or offered incense to them to escape Imperial persecution
and death, and who later returned to the Faith when
persecution subsided. However, Christ warns us,
“Every one therefore that shall confess me before
men, I will also confess him before my Father who
is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men,
I will also deny him before my Father who is in
heaven.” (St. Matthew 10.3-33)
2 St.
John 13.15
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