THE HOLY DEATH OF BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

 

 

THE APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES ARRIVED PREVIOUSLY IN JERUSALEM AND WERE PRESENT AT THE PASSING AWAY OF THE MOST BLESSED MARY

Three days before the happiest Transition of the great Lady, the Apostles and disciples were gathered in Jerusalem and in the Cenacle (upper room house). The first one to arrive was Saint Peter, who was transported from Rome by the hands of an angel. 

St. Peter was transported by the hands of the angel

At that place the angel appeared to him and told him that the passing away of the most blessed Mary was imminent and that the Lord commanded him to go to Jerusalem in order to be present at that event. Thereupon the angel took him up and brought him from Italy to the Cenacle (upper room house.

The great Lady came to the entrance of her oratory in order to receive the Vicar of Christ our Saviour. Kneeling at his feet She asked his blessing and said: “I give thanks and praise to the Almighty, that He has brought to me the holy Father for assisting me in the hour of my death.” 

 

 

Then came Saint Paul (St. Paul was already converted before now), to whom the Queen showed the same reverence with similar tokens of her pleasure at seeing him. The Apostles saluted Her as the Mother of God, as their Queen and as Mistress of all creation; but with a sorrow equal to their reverence, because they knew that they had come to witness her passing away. After these Apostles came the others and the disciples still living. Three days after, they were all assembled in the Cenacle. The heavenly Mother received them all with profound humility, reverence and love, asking each one to bless Her. All of them complied, and saluted Her with admirable reverence. By orders of the Lady given to saint John, and with the assistance of saint James the less, they were all hospitably entertained and accommodated.

 

 

he natural condition and appearance of her sacred and virginal body were the same as at her thirty-third year; for, from that age onward it experienced no change. It was not affected by the passing years, showing no signs of age, no wrinkles in her face or body, nor giving signs of weakening or fading, as in other children of Adam, who gradually fall away and drop from the natural perfection of early man or womanhood. This unchangeableness was the privilege of the most blessed Mary alone, as well because it consorted with the stability of her purest soul, as because it was the natural consequence of her immunity from the sin of Adam, the effects of which in this regard touched neither her sacred body nor her purest soul.

The most holy Mary on Her dying bed

The Apostles and disciples, and some of the other faithful, occupied her chamber, all of them preserving the utmost order in her presence. Saint Peter and saint John placed themselves at the head of the couch. The great Lady looked upon them all with her accustomed modesty and reverence and spoke to them,

 

The words of the most blessed Mary, like arrows of a divine fire, penetrated the hearts of all the Apostles and hearers, and as She ceased speaking, all of them were dissolved in streams of tears and, seized with irreparable sorrow, cast themselves upon the ground with sighs and groans sufficient to move to compassion the very earth. All of them wept, and with them wept also the sweetest Mary, who could not resist this bitter and well-founded sorrow of her children. After some time She spoke to them again, and asked them to pray with Her and for Her in silence, which they did. 

 

THE GLORIOUS AND HAPPY TRANSITION OF THE MOST HOLY MARY

 

During this quietness Jesus Christ descended from heaven on a throne of ineffable glory, accompanied by all the saints and innumerable angels, and the house of the Cenacle (upper room house) was filled with glory. 

He descended on a throne of ineffable Glory

 

The most blessed Mary adored the Lord and kissed his feet. Prostrate before Him She made the last and most profound act of faith and humility in her mortal life. On this occasion the most pure Creature, the Queen of the heavens, shrank within Herself and lowered Herself to the earth more profoundly than all men together ever have or ever will humiliate themselves for all their sins. Her divine Son gave Her his blessing and in the presence of the courtiers of heaven spoke to Her these words:

She prostrated before Her son Jesus Christ and adored Him

“My dearest Mother, whom I have chosen for my dwelling place, the hour is come in which thou art to pass from the life of this death and of the world into the glory of my Father and mine, where thou shalt possess the throne prepared for thee at my right hand and enjoy it through all eternity. And since, by my power and as my Mother, I have caused thee to enter the world free and exempt from sin, therefore also death shall have no tight or permission to touch thee at thy exit from this world. If thou wishest not to pass through it, come with Me now to partake of my glory, which thou hast merited.”

The most prudent Mother prostrated Herself at the feet of her Son and with a joyous countenance answered: “My Son and my Lord, I beseech Thee let thy mother and thy servant enter into eternal life by the common portal of natural death, like the other children of Adam. Thou, who art my true God, hast suffered death without being obliged to do so; it is proper that, as I have followed Thee in life, so I follow Thee also in death.” Christ the Saviour approved of the decision and the sacrifice of his most blessed Mother, and consented to its fulfilment. Then all the angels began to sing in celestial harmony some of the verses of the Canticles of Solomon and other new ones. Although only Saint John and some of the Apostles were enlightened as to the presence of Christ the Saviour, yet the others felt in their interior its divine and powerful effects; but the music was heard as well by the Apostles and disciples, as by many others of the faithful there present. A divine fragrance also spread about, which penetrated even to the street. The house of the Cenacle was filled with a wonderful effulgence, visible to all, and the Lord ordained that multitudes of the people of Jerusalem gathered in the streets as witnesses to this new miracle.

When the angels began their music, the most blessed Mary reclined back upon her couch or bed. Her tunic was folded about her sacred body, her hands were joined and her eyes fixed upon her divine Son, and She was entirely inflamed with the fire of divine love. And as the angels intoned those verses of the second chapter of the Canticles: “Surge, propera, arnica mea,” that is to say: “Arise, haste, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and come, the winter has passed,” etc., She pronounced those words of her Son on the Cross: “Into thy hands, 0 Lord, I commend my spirit.” Then She closed her virginal eyes and expired.

She closed Her virginal eyes and expired

 

The sickness which took away her life was love, without any other weakness or accidental intervention of whatever kind. She died at the moment when the divine power suspended the assistance, which until then had counteracted the sensible ardours of her burning love of God. As soon as this miraculous assistance was withdrawn, the fire of her love consumed the life-humours of her heart and thus caused the cessation of her earthly existence.

Then this most pure Soul passed from her virginal body to be placed in boundless glory, on the throne at the right hand of her divine Son. Immediately the music of the angels seemed to withdraw to the upper air; for that whole procession of angels and saints accompanied the King and Queen to the empyrean heavens. The sacred body of the most blessed Mary, which had been the temple and sanctuary of God in life, continued to shine with an effulgent light and breathed forth such a wonderful and unheard of fragrance, that all the bystanders were filled with interior and exterior sweetness. The thousand angels of her guard remained to watch over the inestimable treasure of her virginal body. The Apostles and disciples, amid the tears and the joy of the wonders they had seen, were absorbed in admiration for some time, and then sang many hymns and psalms in honour of the most blessed Mary now departed.

The beauty of Her body after death and about to bring forth effulgent light

 

Her beautiful countenance after death

This glorious Transition of the great Queen took place in the hour in which her divine Son had died, at three o’clock on a Friday, the thirteenth day of August, she being seventy years of age, less the twenty-six days intervening between the thirteenth of August, on which She died, and the eighth of September, the day of her birth. The heavenly Mother had survived the death of Christ the Saviour twenty-one years, four months and nineteen days; and his virginal birth, fifty-five years. This reckoning can be easily made in the following manner: when Christ our Saviour was born, his virginal Mother was fifteen years, three months and seventeen days of age. The Lord lived thirty-three years and three months; so that at the time of his sacred Passion the most blessed Lady was forty-eight years, six months and seventeen days old; adding to these another twenty-one years, four months and nineteen days, we ascertain her age as seventy years, less twenty-five or twenty-six days. *

 

 *Birth of Christ,                        15 years, 3 months, 17 days

Christ died at,                           33 years, 3 months, ..  days

Her age at His death,                48 years, 6 months, 17 days

After his, death she lived,         21 years, 4 months, 19 days

Age at death,                           69 years, 11 months, 5 or 6 days   

 

 

 

Priest Explains How Amoris Laetitia Was Really Written to ‘Normalize’ Homosexuality...

A priest  blessing gay

LifeSiteNews.com reported on May 14, 2018:

Editor's note: This analysis has been written by a priest who asked that it be published anonymously over concern of being disciplined for raising concerns about a papal document. 

ANALYSIS

May 14, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – I said it right from the beginning, when Amoris Laetitia was first published, with its infamous Chapter 8 that allows individual conscience to trump objective moral law and thus effectively eliminate the notion of intrinsic moral evil: The real issue is not Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried. After all, Pope Francis had already streamlined the annulment process, to allow declarations of nullity which were generally easy to attain, to be even easier. The real issue is all about sodomy, and normalizing — even blessing — this behavior called by the Catechism “intrinsically disordered.” In what follows, I’ll try to “connect the dots” in order to clarify the bigger picture.
Recall that no. 50 of the first draft of the document for the first synod on the family in October, 2014 stated that, “Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community,” and then asked if our communities are “capable of . . . accepting and valuing their sexual orientation” – implying those who practice homosexual behaviors have special “gifts and qualities” over and above everyone else, and that their same-sex attraction — called by the Catechism “objectively disordered” — should be “accepted and valued.” (1)
Although this language never appeared in Amoris Laetitia (AL), the fact that it was inserted into a preliminary working document with Pope Francis’s approval and was then read to the assembled bishops in his presence, is most telling. This language provides a key to understand how Chapter 8 of AL has been interpreted, so as to allow not only those in second civil marriages (and committing adultery) to be admitted to Holy Communion, but also those in same same-sex unions (and engaging in sodomy) – as long as they are “accompanied” by a priest, engage in “discernment,” and follow their “conscience.” (2)
This homosexualist agenda continued to be pushed forward by those who participated in a “secret synod” held in May 2015 at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, the purpose of which was to persuade those who participated in the then-upcoming second synod on the family to accept same-sex unions, dispense with the term ‘intrinsically evil,’ and introduce a controversial “theology of love.” (3) As National Catholic Register correspondent Edward Pentin reported regarding this assembly:

Around 50 participants, including bishops, theologians and media representatives, took part in the gathering, at the invitation of the presidents of the bishops’ conferences of Germany, Switzerland and France – Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Markus Büchel and Archbishop Georges Pontier. One of the key topics discussed at the closed-door meeting was how the Church could better welcome those in stable same-sex unions, and reportedly ‘no one’ opposed such unions being recognized as valid by the Church. (4)

This agenda was given voice during the second synod on the family in October, 2015 by Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, who had been hand-picked by Pope Francis to be a papal delegate at the synod. When asked by Vatican City reporters about Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, Cupich said this was possible if they had “come to a decision in good conscience,” and stressed that “conscience was inviolable” and “we have to respect that when making decisions.”
Cupich was then asked about “accompanying” homosexual couples in receiving Holy Communion, to which he responded, “Gay people are human beings, too; they have a conscience, and my role as a pastor is to help them to discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the Church.” But he went on to say that “at the same time,” his role as a pastor is to help them “through a period of discernment, to understand what God is calling them to at that point, so it’s for everybody.” He added, “We have to be sure we don’t pigeonhole one group as though they’re not part of the human family, as though there’s a different set of rules for them. That would be a big mistake.” (5)
In other words, if those living in adulterous relationships are able with the help of their pastors to discern, according to their conscience, that they should receive Holy Communion, well then, the same can be done for same-sex couples who engage in sodomy. There is no need to truly repent and firmly resolve to amend one’s life, to “go and sin no more”; one can continue in one’s gravely sinful behavior and still receive the Eucharist. (6) Hence, conscience reigns supreme, and the objective moral order is no more.
Worthy of note is that after having made these statements, which were widely quoted by the news media around the world, Pope Francis raised Blase Cupich to the College of Cardinals.

High-level prelates supporting new paradigm 

This same interpretation of Chapter 8 of AL has been confirmed by a host of other high-level prelates – some of whom are cardinals very close to Pope Francis – in the months and years that followed publication of AL. Here are some noteworthy examples.
Recall that it was German Cardinal Walter Kasper, at a consistory of cardinals called by Pope Francis back in February of 2014, who initially proposed allowing the divorced and civilly remarried to receive Holy Communion (the “Kasper proposal”). Soon after the release of AL, Kasper went on record saying that it “seems clear . . . that there can be situations of divorced and remarried where on the way of inclusion, absolution and communion becomes possible”; and that the exhortation “overcomes a rigid casuistic approach and gives room for Christian freedom of conscience.” (7)
Ah, yes, and the appeal to individual conscience as the final arbiter of one’s conduct can likewise apply to those in same-sex relationships, to allow them to be admitted to the Eucharist. Kasper says as much in a new booklet he authored, The Message of Amoris Laetitia: A Fraternal Discussion:

The pope does not leave room for doubt over the fact that civil marriages, de facto unions, new marriages following a divorce (Amoris Laetitia 291) and unions between homosexual persons (Amoris Laetitia 250s.) do not correspond to the Christian conception of marriage”; however, says Kasper, the Pope insists that “some of these partners can realize in a partial and analogous way some elements in Christian marriage (Amoris Laetitia 292). (8)

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, whom Pope Francis has called an “authoritative interpreter” of Amoris Laetitia, sees AL as allowing Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried. (9) In an interview during the 2015 Synod on the Family, he called for the recognition of “positive elements” of homosexual unions, saying: “We can and we must respect the decision to form a union with a person of the same sex, [and] to seek means under civil law to protect their living together with laws to ensure such protection.” Schoenborn went on to criticize “intransigent moralists” among his fellow bishops, whom he accused of having an “obsession with intrinsece malum [intrinsic evils].” (10)
Back in 2006, Schoenborn’s cathedral in Vienna offered a blessing for unmarried couples on Valentine’s Day that included homosexual partners; and in 2016, the bulletin in Schoenborn’s cathedral featured a photograph of two men and an adopted child, presenting them as “family” and a “married couple.” (11)
In an interview back in 2016, German Cardinal Reinhardt Marx, President of the German Bishops’ Conference and one of Pope Francis’s nine cardinal advisers, said that one cannot say same-sex relationships have no “worth”; that the Church should support “regulating” such relationships and that “[w]e as church cannot be against it.” (12) And in interview in January of 2018, Marx said that the Church in her teaching on sexual morality cannot apply a “blind rigorism”; that it is “difficult to say from the outside whether someone is in the state of mortal sin” – a principle which he said applies not only to men and women in “irregular situations,” but also to those in homosexual relationships, because there has to be a “respect for a decision made in freedom” and in light of one’s “conscience.” (13)
In an interview on January 10 of this year, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, Vice-President of the German Bishops’ Conference, made world news when he called for a blessing of homosexual couples: “We have to reflect upon the question of how to assess, in a differentiated manner, a relationship between two homosexual persons . . . . Is there not so much positive and good and right so that we have to be more just?” (14)
And just a few weeks later, news reports throughout the world quoted Cardinal Marx supporting his fellow Bishop Bode in calling for blessings for same-sex couples, saying that the decision should made by “the pastor on the ground, and the individual under pastoral care,” (15) and that such blessing could be performed publicly in a “liturgical” form. (16)
So, members of the Church hierarchy, while acknowledging that homosexual unions are not the “ideal,” have now gone from considering the “positive” elements of such relationships to “blessing” them, and (as it appears) will go on to compose a new liturgical rite which (at least for now) recognizes that while this is not “marriage” in the technical sense, it is a legitimate, alternative form of a relationship which we must “value.”
What is lost here is that by blessing same-sex unions, one in reality is blessing the gravely sinful and “intrinsically disordered” behavior that accompanies it, a sin that, according to revealed word of God and the constant teaching of the Church throughout the ages, “cries out to Heaven for vengeance.” (17) As Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia wisely noted in response to this proposal for a blessing: “Any such ‘blessing rite’ would cooperate in a morally forbidden act”; moreover, to bless such a relationship would actually be uncharitable because it would encourage people to continue living in a state of grave sin which harms them spiritually. Chaput went on to say: “There is no love – no charity – without truth, just as there is no real mercy separated from a framework of justice informed and guided by truth.” (18)
Gerhard Cardinal Mueller, former Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has recognized these attempts to redefine the Church’s perennial moral teachings by claiming that they represent a “development of doctrine” and a “paradigm shift,” for what they really are: the heresy of modernism. (19) N.Y. Timescolumnist Ross Douthat has concluded pretty much the same, noting that with Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis and others want Church’s moral teaching to adapt to modern cultural norms. (20)

The real goal of Amoris Laetitia

Call it modernism, call it corruption of doctrine, call it by whatever name one sees fit. I submit that winning moral approval for homosexual behavior is the real goal of Amoris Laetitia, and that this is precisely why the teaching of Humanae Vitae and the Natural Law must be cast aside, which is: that by God’s design, there exists an inseparable link between the unitive and procreative meanings of the marital act, and that the unitive meaning is subordinated to the primary end: procreation. As Couple-to-Couple League founder John Kippley has argued, if the procreative meaning can be eliminated from the marital act, then one is effectively left with no argument against sodomy. And those who promote the sodomite agenda know this.
They know that they must also discard the notion of physical and emotional complementarity of the sexes, (21) as well as the concept of intrinsic moral evil – which in effect means they must overturn the entire moral order. This explains why they are now calling for removing language in the Catechism which states that the same-sex attraction is “objectively disordered,” (22) and that homosexual acts “are acts of grave depravity” which are “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law” precisely because they “close the sexual act to the gift of life” and “do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.” (23)
This also explains why for over a year now we’ve heard talk of “re-examining” the teaching of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical. Those who desire to cast Humanae Vitaeinto the trash bin are now showing their hand. Witness Fr. Maurizio Chiodi, who was recently appointed by Pope Francis to the Pontifical Academy of Life. Although St. John Paul II in his 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor (no. 80) specifically includes contraception in a list of acts that are “intrinsically evil,” Fr. Chiodi, in a Dec. 14, 2017 lecture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, “Humanae Vitae in light of AL,” argued just the opposite: that based on the language of Amoris Laetitiaregarding conscience, “an artificial method for the regulation of births could be recognized as an act of responsibility that is carried out, not in order to radically reject the gift of a child, but because in those situations responsibility calls the couple and the family to other forms of welcome and hospitality.” To support his argument, Chiodi says that Amoris Laetitia makes no “explicit reference” to contraception as “intrinsically evil,” adding that “it would have been very easy to do so given Veritatis Splendor.” (24)
Chiodi has been followed by Cardinal Kasper, who in his new booklet, The Message of Amoris Laetitia: A Fraternal Discussion, implies that AL opens the door for the use of contraception. Kasper says that in his exhortation the Pope only “encourages the use of the method of observing the cycles of natural fertility,” and “does not say anything about other methods of family planning and avoids all casuistic definitions.” (25)
More arguments to permit the exclusion of the procreative end of sexual activity are sure to come from those who seek approval of homosexual behavior, because they know that they cannot succeed as long as the teachings of Humanae Vitae and the Natural Law stand.
In this writer’s humble opinion, the fact that cardinals and bishops of the Church are arguing that not only the divorced and civilly remarried, but those in homosexual unions, should be admitted Holy Communion, and that the teaching of Humanae Vitae should be cast aside, reveals that they have lost the theological virtue of faith. The words of the Epistle to the Hebrews aptly describe their sad state:

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, who have both tasted the heavenly gift and become partakers of the Holy Spirit, . . . and then have fallen away, to be renewed again to repentance; since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and make him a mockery. For the earth that drinks in the rain that often falls upon it, and produces vegetation that is of use to those by whom it is tilled, receives a blessing from God; but that which brings forth thorns and thistles is worthless, and is nigh unto a curse, and its end is to be burnt (Heb. 6:4-8).

How should the faithful – bishops, priests, religious and laity – respond to these wicked assaults on God and His beautiful plan for the authentic expression of love, the transmission of human life, the sanctity of marriage and the family? This year marks the 50^th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, and thus offers a golden opportunity to celebrate and make better known the teaching in Bl. Paul VI’s 1968 landmark encyclical. We have the magisterium of St. John Paul II to draw upon as well – not only Veritatis Splendor, but his “Theology of the Body.” This year, let us, assisted by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Our Lady, valiantly proclaim the splendor of the truth of this teaching, and thereby mount a strong and unshakeable defense against any and all who attack it.
______________
1 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/reporters-criticize-vatican-for-dropping-welcoming-language-in-new-english (Oct. 16, 2014).
2 See AL nos. 300-305, and footnote 351.
3 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-academy-for-life-member-uses-amoris-to-say-some-circumstances-require-c (Jan. 8, 2017).
4 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/confidential-meeting-seeks-to-sway-synod-to-accept-same-sex-unions (May 26, 2015).
5 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/abp-cupich-conscience-decides-whether-divorced-remarried-and-homosexual-cou (Oct. 16, 2016). In his Feb. 9, 2018 address at St. Edmund’s College in Cambridge, England, “Pope Francis' Revolution of Mercy: Amoris Laetitia as a New Paradigm of Catholicity,” Cardinal Cupich insisted that “the voice of conscience . . . could very well affirm the necessity of living at some distance from the Church’s understanding of the ideal” – an understanding of conscience which can be applied equally to the divorced and civilly remarried engaged in adulterous conduct, and to those in same-sex unions engaged in sodomy.
6 As a priest and confessor, if a penitent tells me he is sexually active in an invalid marriage or in a same-sex relationship, but insists that he plans to continue his sinful acts, I am obliged to try to bring him to a realization that his subjective opinion regarding his conduct cannot overrule the objective moral law and the clear teaching of Christ; and that I have to follow my conscience and withhold absolution if he is unwilling to firmly resolve to amend his life. If the penitent persists in saying he does not believe he is committing a sin, I would have to tell him: “Then I have nothing to absolve you from”; and then ask him: “Why are you here in the confessional asking to be absolved from a course of conduct you do not believe is sinful?” 
7 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-kasper-seems-clear-exhortation-allows-communion-for-divorced-remar (April 18, 2016).
8 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-kasper-homosexual-unions-are-analogous-to-christian-marriage (March 14, 2018). In the booklet, Kasper compares such irregular unions with the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian groups, whom Vatican II says contain “elements of sanctification and truth” of the Church. Kasper insists that “Just as outside the Catholic Church there are elements of the true Church, in the above-mentioned unions there can be elements present of Christian marriage, although they do not completely fulfill, or do not yet completely fulfill, the ideal.” N.B.:  Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn made this same argument at the 2014 Synod on the Family – see footnote 10 below.
9 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-says-schonborn-interpretation-on-communion-for-remarried-is-the-final (April 6, 2016). This position is not new for Schoenborn. At the International Retreat for Priests held in Ars, France in 2009 held during the Year of Priests proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Schoenborn delivered most of the daily meditations, which were, on the whole, very inspiring. But as the retreat drew to a close, the Cardinal announced that he would use his last retreat talk to address topics of concern, and invited priests to submit questions. During his final talk, Schoenborn addressed the issue of Communion for those divorced and civilly remarried. To the surprise and shock of the 1200 priests present, he proceeded to tell them that it was his practice to allow such couples to receive the Eucharist if they remained faithful and committed to each other for many years.
10 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-schoenborn-at-synod-church-should-embrace-positive-elements-of-gay (Sept. 14, 2015). This article notes that at the 2015 Synod, Schoenborn “proposed an interpretative key” to revolutionize the Church’s approach to family life and sexual ethics by looking at Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, which states: “Although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity [LG 8].” Schoenborn argues that “Because marriage is a Church in miniature,” and just as the Church seeks to find elements of truth in different religions, it follows that “who are we to judge and say that there are no elements of truth and sanctification in them [non-marital sexual lifestyles]?”
11 https://onepeterfive.com/schonborns-vienna-cathedral-bulletin-depicts-homosexual-couple-adopted-son/ (Oct. 6, 2016).
12 https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/cardinal-reinhard-marx-vs.-cardinal-and-saint-peter-damian-do-homosexual-un (Jan. 28, 2016).
13 https://onepeterfive.com/push-for-greater-acceptance-of-homosexual-unions-continues-in-german-church/ (Jan. 19, 2018). This interview appeared in the German Catholic journal Herder Korrespondenz, and the German Bishops’ official website immediately reported on Marx’s statement.
14 Ibid.
15 http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/02/04/cardinal-marx-suggests-church-should-bless-gay-couples/ (Feb. 4, 2018).
16 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/one-of-popes-9-advisor-cardinals-proposes-liturgical-blessings-of-homosexua (Feb. 4, 2018).
17 Cf. Gen. 18:20; Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1867.
18 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/german-cardinal-liturgical-blessing-for-gay-unions-truly-seems-sacrilegious (Feb. 8, 2018).
19 https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/02/development-or-corruption (Feb. 20, 2018).
20 See Douthat’s new book, To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism (Simon & Schuster, 2018).
21 CCC 2333.
22 CCC 2368.
23 CCC 2357.
24 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-academy-for-life-member-uses-amoris-to-say-some-circumstances-require-c (Jan. 8, 2017). As Diane Montagna relates in this article, “Fr. Chiodi’s talk was introduced by one of the chief organizers of the conference series, Argentine Jesuit Father Humberto Miguel Yanez. Fr. Yanez is the Director of the Department of Moral Theology at the Gregorian University. Yanez is known to be close to Pope Francis, and in fact Bergoglio was Yanez’ religious superior as a young Jesuit. In May 2015, Father Yanez participated in the ‘secret synod’ at the Gregorian” (as discussed herein above).
25 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-kasper-homosexual-unions-are-analogous-to-christian-marriage (March 14, 2018).

 The Reality of Hell : Stories of Persons Who Visited Hell and Apparitions of the Damned...  Read more...

THE PRESENTATION OF THE CHILD MARY IN THE TEMPLE

It was a precept of the law, given in the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, that a woman who had given birth to a daughter should be deemed impure for two weeks and should remain in the state of purification for sixty-six days after the birth, just double the time required for purification in case of a man-child Having completed the days of her purification she was to present herself in order to offer a lamb one year old as a holocaust for the daughter or the son, and also a young pigeon or turtle-dove as atonement for the sin. This she was to do at the door of the tabernacle, beseeching the priest to offer them to the Lord and to pray for her; thereupon she was accounted pure. The parturition of the most happy Anne was pure and undefiled, as befitting her heavenly Daughter, in whose purity the mother was a sharer. Although on this account there was no need of a special purification, she nevertheless complied with the obligation of the law to the very last point. Though not subject to its penalties, she considered herself bound in the eyes of men.

Sixty days of the purification having passed, saint Anne departed for the temple, her mind inflamed with divine ardour and bearing in her arms her blessed Daughter and Child. With the offerings prescribed by law and accompanied by innumerable angels, she betook herself to the gate of the temple and spoke with the high priest, who was none other than Simeon.

 Saint Anne offered to him the lamb and the turtle-dove with the rest of the gifts, and with tears of humility she asked him to pray for herself and the Child, her Daughter, that the Lord forgive them any fault of which perhaps they might be guilty. His Majesty certainly had nothing to forgive in a Daughter and mother, who were so full of grace; but He found Himself bound to reward the humility, with which notwithstanding their holiness they presented themselves as sinners. 

The holy priest received the oblation and in his spirit he was inflamed and moved to extraordinary joy. Careful not to manifest anything exteriorly and communing with himself, he said: “What strange feeling is this within me? Are these women perhaps the parents of the Messiah, who is to come?” Moved by this joyful suspense he showed them great benevolence. The blessed mother Anne entered the temple, bearing her most holy Daughter on her arms, and She offered Her to the Lord with most devout and tender tears. For she alone in the entire world knew what Treasure was given into her charge.

when both entered the temple, the sweet Child seeing with her bodily eyes its grandeur and magnificence, dedicated to the worship and adoration of the Divinity, experienced wonderful effects of the Spirit and wished to prostrate Herself in the temple, to kiss its floor, and adore the Lord. But as She could not execute these desires in external actions, She supplied the defect with interior fervor, and She adored and blessed the Lord with a love more ardent, and a humility more profound than ever before or ever after was possible to be rendered by any creature. Addressing the Lord in her heart, She offered the following prayer:

 “Most high and incomprehensible God, my King and my Lord, worthy of all glory and reverence, I, abject dust, but also a creature of thine, adore Thee in this thy holy place and temple. I magnify and exalt Thee on account of thy infinite Being and perfections, and I give thanks in as far as my insignificance is worthy of thy regard. For Thou hast vouchsafed to permit my eyes to see this holy temple and house of prayer, where thy holy Prophets and my forefathers have worshiped and blessed Thee, and where thy generous mercy has wrought so many wonders and mysteries in their behalf. Accept me, a Lord, in order that I may serve Thee in this holy house according to thy blessed will.”

    Grandeur and magnificence of the Temple

Thus She who was the Queen of heaven and of the universe, offered Herself as if She were the lowest slave of the Lord. As a testimony of its acceptation by the Most High, a most resplendent light shone down from heaven, enveloping the mother and Child, and filling them with new splendours of grace. The holy angels of her guard and innumerable others who were present on this occasion sang sweetest songs of praise to the Author of these wonders; but they did not therefore have a more perfect knowledge of these happenings than saint Anne or her most holy Daughter, who perceived interiorly what was spiritual, and felt exteriorly what was subject to the senses in these things. Saint Simeon saw dimly the sensible light. Thereupon saint Anne, rich in her Treasure and endowed with new gifts of the most high God, returned to her home.

Was Pope Benedict XVI Forced to Resign?

Was Pope Benedict XVI Forced to Resign?

Veritas Vincit: The Truth Shall Prevail reported on October 20, 2017:

Almost five years since his momentous resignation from the papacy on February 11, 2013 for health reasons, the undeniable fact is that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI remains in the peak of health and in full control of his faculties.  He has also chosen to remain in the Vatican. He has also chosen to retain the title of “pope”, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

In his last general assembly on February 27, 2013, 2 weeks after announcing his intent to resign, Benedict XVI said that the petrine ministry is “always” and “forever”:

He who assumes the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and totally to everyone, to the whole Church. His life is, so to speak, totally deprived of the private sphere. […] The “always” is also a “forever”—there is no returning to private life. My decision to forgo the exercise of active ministry, does not revoke this. I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences and so on. I do not abandon the cross, but remain in a new way near to the Crucified Lord.

And we have to ask: Why did Benedict XVI resign in the first place, if the petrine ministry “is forever”?  Was his resignation out of his own full volition and will? Was it valid in the first place?

New revelations have come to light which give us more information on the circumstances surrounding Benedict’s mysterious resignation.

Leaked Emails Show Political Plot to Oust Benedict

A group of Catholic leaders cite new evidence uncovered in emails released by WikiLeaks that the conservative Pope Benedict did not actually resign on his own initiative, but was pushed out of the Vatican by a coup that the group of researchers are calling the “Catholic Spring.”

The group of Catholic leaders includes Christopher A. Ferrara, President of The American Catholic Lawyers Association, Michael J. Matt, Editor of The Remnant, David L. Sonnier, LTC US ARMY (Retired), Chris Jackson of Catholics4Trump.com, and Elizabeth Yore, Founder of YoreChildren.

Last January 20, 2017, the group wrote and published a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, formally requesting him to to launch an official investigation into the activities of the billionaire liberal leftist George Soros, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (and others) who they allege were involved in orchestrating the Catholic Spring that resulted in their goal of “regime change” in the Vatican.

The group included with the letter evidence from various sources to support their claim, including WikiLeaks emails.  WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes secret information, news leaks,  and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Its website, initiated in 2006 by Julian Assange, has a database of 10 million documents in 10 years since its launch.

Soros, Obama and Clinton Behind Benedict XVI Resignation?

The leaked emails show that Soros, Obama and Clinton used the United States’ diplomatic machinery, political muscle, and financial power to coerce, bribe and blackmail “regime change” in the Roman Catholic Church in order to replace Benedict XVI with Pope Francis – who has since become an unlikely mouthpiece for the international left, stunning Catholics around the world.

“We have reason to believe that a Vatican ‘regime change’ was engineered by the Obama administration,” say the petitioners, in their January 20 letter to President Trump.  “We were alarmed to discover,” their letter notes, “that, during the third year of the first term of the Obama administration your previous opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other government officials with whom she associated proposed a Catholic ‘revolution’ in which the final demise of what was left of the Catholic Church in America would be realized.”

Leaked Emails

The Letter first directs attention to the notorious Soros-Clinton-Podesta e-mails disclosed last year (2016) by WikiLeaks, in which John Podesta and other progressives discussed regime change to remove what they described as the “middle ages dictatorship” in the Catholic Church. Podesta was the former chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. He previously served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and Counselor to President Barack Obama.

Podesta revealed in a 2011 e-mail that he and other activists were working to effect a “Catholic Spring” revolution within the Catholic Church, an obvious reference to the disastrous “Arab Spring” coups organized that same year by the Obama-Clinton-Soros team that destabilized the Middle East and brought radical Islamist regimes and terrorist groups to power in the region. The Podesta e-mail is a response to another Soros-funded radical — Sandy Newman, founder of the “progressive” Voices for Progress. Newman had written to Podesta seeking advice on the best way to “plant the seeds of the revolution” in the Catholic Church.

In his e-mail of February 10, 2011 to Podesta (as released by WikiLeaks), Newman writes:

There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church. Is contraceptive coverage an issue around which that could happen. The Bishops will undoubtedly continue the fight.

Newman admits that since he’s not a member of the Catholic Church and doesn’t understand its workings, he doesn’t “qualify to be involved.” But he still very much wants to see the “revolution” go forward. He writes:

Of course, this idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the  Catholic church…. Even if the idea isn’t crazy, I don’t qualify to be involved and I have not thought at all about  how one would “plant the seeds of the revolution,” or who would plant them. Just wondering …

John Podesta responded the following day, writing:

We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up. I’ll discuss with Tara. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is the other person to consult.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United are two of the many Soros-funded “Catholic” activist groups that push the “progressive” agenda (abortion “rights,” homosexual “marriage,” LBGT K through12 “education,” women priests, etc.) inside the church.

Call for Investigation

In their letter to President Trump, the group of Catholics leaders write: “After this e-mail discussion, which was never intended to be made public, we find that Pope Benedict XVI abdicated under highly unusual circumstances and was replaced by a pope whose apparent mission is to provide a spiritual component to the radical ideological agenda of the international left.  The Pontificate of Pope Francis has subsequently called into question its own legitimacy on a multitude of occasions.”

“We remain puzzled by the behavior of this ideologically charged Pope, whose mission seems to be one of advancing secular agendas of the left rather than guiding the Catholic Church in Her sacred mission,”they say, expressing the thoughts of millions of Catholics around the world stunned by Pope Francis’s left-wing ideology. “It is simply not the proper role of a Pope to be involved in politics to the point that he is considered to be the leader of the international left.”

International Monetary Transactions with the Vatican were Suspended Days Prior to Benedict XVI’s Resignation

Why were International monetary transactions with the Vatican suspended during the last few days prior to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI? Why were international monetary transactions with the Vatican subsequently resumed on February 12, 2013, just one day after Benedict XVI announced his resignation? Was this pure coincidence?

An investigative article by Italian journalist Maurizio Blondet alleges that Pope Benedict XVI was blackmailed into abdication by forces allied with SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), which had a hand in the shutdown of ATM and bank card services at the Vatican in January of 2013.

According to Blondet:

There was a blackmail of Benedict XVI, coming from who knows where, through SWIFT. The underlying reasons for this have not been clarified, but it is clear that SWIFT has intervened directly in the management of affairs of the Church.

According to Blondet, Italian banking regulators pressured Deutsche Bank, which managed the Vatican’s ATM machines and credit card payment services, to cease their services to the Holy See. He cites the Financial Times, which reported:

Deutsche did what regulators had hoped it would. On January 1 2013, a peak holiday time, there were no ATMs functioning anywhere inside Vatican City. Lines of visitors to the Sistine Chapel were unable to enter unless they paid in cash. “The message sent was simple: if you want to participate in the modern world, you have to adopt modern rules,” says a senior banker at another correspondent bank.

On February 12, 2013, just one day after Benedict XVI announced his intention to abdicate, the Vatican suddenly reached an agreement with a Swiss firm to resume ATM and other bank card transactions.

A Mafia Group of Cardinals Who Plotted Benedict XVI’s Demise

At the launch of his authorized biography last September 2015, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, archbishop emeritus of Brussels and one of Pope Francis’ closest advisors, confessed that he was part of a radical secret “mafia” reformist group of cardinals opposed to Benedict XVI.

He called it a “mafia” club that bore the name of “St. Gallen”. The group wanted a drastic reform of the Church, to make it “much more modern”, and for Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to head it. The group, which also comprised Cardinal Walter Kasper and the late Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, has been documented in Austen Ivereigh’s biography of Pope Francis, The Great Reformer.

The cardinal is a notorious liberal, once writing a letter to the Belgium government favoring same-sex “marriage” legislation because it ended discrimination against LGBT groups. The cardinal is also known for having once advised the king of Belgium to sign an abortion law in 1990, for telling a victim of clerical sex abuse to keep quiet, and for refusing to forbid pornographic, “educational” materials being used in Belgian Catholic schools. 

A Plot to Assassinate Pope Benedict XVI?

In a startling revelation that was extensively covered by news outlets worldwide, Cardinal Paolo Romeo, the archbishop of Palermo in Sicily claimed last November 2011 that Pope Benedict XVI would die within the next 12 months.

Cardinal Romeo reportedly made the startling prediction of the Pope’s death during a trip to China on November 2011. He seemed so sure of the fact that the people he spoke with, including Italian businessmen and Chinese representatives of the Catholic Church, were convinced that he was talking about an assassination attempt.

They were so alarmed by his remarks that they reported them back to the Vatican. The extraordinary comments were written up in a top-secret report, dated Dec 30, 2011, and delivered to Pope Benedict XVI by a senior cardinal, Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a Colombian, in January.

Could it be that the Pope, not for fear of death, but for possible harm to the Church should the plot succceed, decided it was best to resign to remove the assassination threat and advance a peaceful succession?

Is the Papal Resignation Valid?

The Code of Canon Law (332:2) provides that: “If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.”

In this sense, while it is true that the Pope “freely” declared to resign, the circumstances and evidence seem to indicate that to a greater or lesser extent, he was forced by pressure to resign on multiple fronts (assassination threat, suspension of Vatican finances, etc).

While the Pope made the decision to resign in accordance with the powers given to him under the Code of Canon Law, could it be that he made it under the duress of moral violence, which, according to No. 125 of the same Code, invalidates the final decision at the root and renders the act invalid ? It is like one who freely chooses to marry, but if there is hidden stress, fear or deception, the marriage is void for fault, although a clearly “free” commitment has been expressed publicly.

EDITOR'S COMMENT:  From January 1 to February 11, then, a total of 42 days, the Vatican may have lost $1.26 million in sales.  The Central Bank of Italy restored the credit card processing the day after Pope Benedict resigned.  Are the forces of the antichrist going to attempt to place on the Seat of Peter in the up coming Papal election?  Storm Heaven with prayers to save the Papacy!!!