A Crusade! (August 15 - December 8)

The Order of the Knights of our Lady is answering to the call for crusade.

The Crusade

A Perpetual Rosary Crusade For the Holy Father and the Triumph of Catholic Faith.
It consists of a continuous rosary being said 24 hours a day, 7 days a week between the feasts of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception this year. The Order had been contacted by Fr Daniel Couture, District Superior for Asia during the Order's General Chapter and decided to answer the call to join his effort during the same short span of time (August 15/ December 8). Members of the order both within and without the Asian District is answering to the call for a crusade, with a specific Perpetual Rosary schedule including members from various time zones built on the same basis.

Organization

Master grids are being sent to all priories in Asia and Knights of the Order will fill their own specific grid or schedule worldwide. Upon completion the grids will be sent both to Fr Couture and to the Superior General.

The purpose

Two reasons exist for the crusade.

I) The crusade was requested by Bishop Fellay:

"If now I launch a Perpetual Crusade, it is because today we must consent to an effort which is not momentary but constant and persevering, at the level of what is at stake. The battle for the faith cannot be fought with one-day, or intermittent soldiers. We need tough faithful. The battle is going to be one in length but for very precise objects: last time we prayed for the liberation of the Holy Mass (note: with a spiritual bouquet of 2.5 million rosary). Now, we are asking the Blessed Virgin the withdrawal of the decree of excommunication, i.e. the liberation of Tradition. Later on, we will have other objectives, other intentions for our prayers.
With the number and the geographical locations of the faithful attached to Tradition worldwide, we are sure that at every hour of the day and of the night there will be souls who will be praying for the liberation of Tradition in the huge Perpetual Rosary"

II) We are in the last month of the Marian year of the 150th anniversary of Lourdes, now is a good opportunity to honour our Lady!

Seven Degrees of Humility

+JMJ+

The Knight is humble, magnanimous and loyal. (Knightly Code of Honour)

Seven Degrees of Humility:

1) To acknowledge oneself contemptible;
2) To grieve on account of this;
3) To confess or admit we are so;
4) To convince our neighbor of this, that is to wish them to believe it;
5) To bear patiently that this be said of us;
6) To suffer oneself to be treated with contempt
7) To love being thus treated

- taken from St Anselm (De Simil. ci, seqq.) and St Thomas Aquinas (Humility: Secunda Secundae Partis, Q. 161)

Transubstantiation, "a long and difficult term"

From the Book, "Priest where is thy Mass, Mass where is thy Priest?", Angelus Press

Seventeen Roman Catholic priests (none of whom are formally members of the Society of Saint Pius X) explain why they celebrate the old rite of the Latin Mass instead of the New Mass. In question and answer format, these priests tell their trials and triumphs over the Novus Ordo establishment. Inspiring and often heroic examples of fidelity to their priestly vocation. Who ever would have thought that it would come to this?

Archbishop William Levada, Prefect for the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told Father Eugene Heidt that Transubstantiation is a “long and difficult term” and “we don’t use that term any more”. (p. 64)

Cremation

+JMJ+

Please pray for the soul of the former Archbishop of Singapore, Gregory Yong who was cremated recently.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/357787/1/.html

In the churches and chapels of the Society of St. Pius X, as the SSPX teach the traditional doctrine of the Catholic Church, they also keep its traditional practices.

The SSPX continue to follow the teaching of the 1917 Canon Law on burial & cremation, which expresses the constant thought of the holy Catholic Church:

Canon 1203: "The bodies of the faithful must be buried, and cremation is reprobated. If anyone has in any manner ordered his body to be cremated, it shall be unlawful to execute his wish."

Canon 1240, 5° says that "Persons who have given orders for the cremation of their bodies are deprived of ecclesiastical burial, unless they have before death given some signs of repentance."

Canon 2339 says that "Persons who, in violation of the prohibition of Canon 1240, dare to order or force the ecclesiastical burial (of those who are to be deprived of it) incur excommunication ipso facto; and persons who of their own accord give ecclesiastical burial to the above mentioned, incur an interdict from entering a church."

Summary:
- The bodies of the dead must be buried - cremation is forbidden.
- Ecclesiastical burial will be denied to those who asked for the cremation of their bodies.

In an Instruction dated June 19th 1926, the Holy Office said that the Last Sacraments could not be given to a person who is asking for cremation for itself. It adds that, entering in a society for cremation linked with Freemasonry makes this person incur the penalties for joining Freemasons, especially excommunication. Public Masses for the repose of the soul of persons who asked for cremation, are also forbidden. It comes from Canon 1241, which forbids public Masses for persons having been deprived of ecclesiastical burial. Obviously let us not forget that the Holy Church permits cremation in exceptional circumstances, as in times of epidemic, war, etc. (same Instruction)


The constant Traditional Doctrine of the Catholic Church for 1,900 years is that it condemns Cremation, because:

a) Freemasonry promotes it as a public profession of irreligion and materialism. Cremation is condemned by the Catholic Church because of its symbolism and because cremation was promoted by the enemies of the Faith for the very purpose of expressing and advancing their materialistic belief in annihilation.

b) Cremation is a barbarous custom opposed to the respect and piety that one must have for our dead, even on the natural level.

Holy Church permits cremation in exceptional circumstances, as in times of epidemic, war..

c) Conciliar modernism and the doctrine of the Catholic Church

In the new Canon Law promulgated in 1983 (n. 1176 paragraph 3), the actual authorities of the Church do not forbid anymore cremation "unless it was chosen because of reasons opposite to the Catholic doctrine" (for example, denial of the dogma of the resurrection of the bodies).

But isn't it in fact a great help given to all these associations for cremation founded all over the world now to spread this practice? These associations are inspired by Freemasonry which is now spreading cremation to fight the Catholic Church and its beliefs.

Even if the new Canon Law continues to deeply recommend the burial of the bodies, its new politics of no-condemnation favors once again the action of the enemies of the Church who, by their diabolical hatred of the creation of God, kill the fetus by abortion, the sick and the old people by euthanasia, and savagely destroy the bodies of the dead by cremation.

One can also add that cremation endangers the practice of the veneration of relics.

Let us honor our dead by burying their bodies with respect in a cemetery, and taking care of their souls by Masses, prayers and sacrifices.

http://www.sspxasia.com/Newsletters/1999/May/Is-cremation-allowed.htm

St Thomas Aquinas Five Ways (Summa Theologica Question 2 Article 3)

Very often a Christian is asked the question “why are you a Christian? Why do you believe that God exists?”

Can the existence of God be proven logically and philosophically?

According to the Doctor of the Church, St Thomas Aquinas, there exist five ways to prove that God exists.

First Way

1. There exist changes in the world. And for every change(effect) there must be a cause.
2. It is impossible to believe that there is no first cause as every effect has a cause and if there is no first cause there will be no effects.
3. This first cause, we understand as God.

Second Way

1. Nothing is the cause of itself. Everything is caused by something as it is impossible for anything to create itself out of nothing.
2. There must be an uncaused first cause to start the chain going.
3. God is the uncaused first cause.

Third Way

1. There are things that exist and things that fail to exist,
2. If everything can fail to exist, there must be a time when everything doesn’t exist
3. But we exist, therefore if there had been a time when nothing exist then we shouldn’t be existing. (refer to second way)
4. There must be something that exist necessary for the existence of everything else.
5. This we understand as God

Fourth Way

1. For everything there are different degrees of quality. Like some people are smarter than others by a certain degree. Or that boiling water is hotter than tap water.
2. The things with the highest quality are the cause of the quality of the same kind. (such as fire which is hottest is the cause of everything else that is hot)
3. As Aristotle says that the greatest in truth are the greatest in being.
4. The greatest in truth, good and noble and of other perfections, this we understand as God.

Fifth Way

1. There are natural laws in the world. (gravity, a working ecosystem, even how the human body works without our active consciousness)
2. These things work towards a purpose and tend towards what is the best.
3. Consistency of the laws and purposeful actions reflect that things work with a purpose and not by mere chance.
4. Something that lacks consciousness can act in a unified way only if it is directed by something with consciousness and intelligence.
5. This intelligence we understand as God.

Bishop Williamson SSPX

Confirmation SermonApril 16, 2008

St. Thomas Becket Catholic Church

Veneta, Oregon - USA

More Weeds in the Church

Via Crucis (The Way of the Cross) composed by Cardinal Ratzinger, March 25, 2005, Good Friday

9th Station of the Cross: Our Lord falls the Third Time:

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2005/via_crucis/en/station_09.html

Meditation:
How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!


Prayer:
Lord, Thy Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In Thy field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of Thy Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray Thee time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on Thy Church; within Her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag Thee down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that Thou will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of Thy Church, Thou will remain prostrate and overpowered. But Thou will rise again. Thou stood up, Thou arose and Thou can also raise us up. Save and sanctify Thy Church. Save and sanctify us all.

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2005/documents/ns_lit_doc_20050325_via-crucis_en.html