It’s not an uncommon occurrence for pilots, especially in poor visibility, and it’s incredibly dangerous. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, between 5 percent and 10 percent of all aviation accidents are caused by spatial disorientation, and of those crashes, 90 percent are fatal.
Is spiritual disorientation any less dangerous? Catholics since Vatican II, and even before with the tsunami of modernism, resemble that poor pilot who doesn't know which way is up. How many are experiencing a sort of spiritual vertigo that can lead to serious falls? Many I'm guessing.
At present I'm reading Archbishop Lefebvre's An Open Letter to Confused Catholics. It hit me especially hard today because I recently met a fallen-away Catholic raised in troubling circumstances. His mother was married and divorced several times. His partner of sixteen years whom he's known since childhood was also raised in a divorced home. Neither of them wanted to marry because of their unhappy upbringings, so they live together without "the contract." I tried to explain that marriage is a covenant, not a contract, but didn't have the time to really delve into it with him. So now I'm praying for this couple and beg you to pray for them as well.
The discussion brought home the level of confusion in the Church which Francis magnified with both his words and actions. How could my friendly and conscientious acquaintance ever have known the depth of his Catholic faith to leave it? He actually mentioned Francis to me, saying he never liked him. I doubt if the Francis papacy played a part in his departure since he obviously had abandoned Church doctrine on marriage before 2013. Nevertheless, Francis did nothing to encourage his return to the faith. The salvation of this couple is at risk and they apparently don't even know it.
He and his partner still go to church where he plays the drums for the services. I told him I'm confident he will one day return to the faith because the Hound of Heaven is pursuing him. He assured me he would never come back, but said it with a smile. May God place many Catholics in his path to trickle drops of grace on his heart.
Which brings me back to the confusion described by Archbishop Lefebvre. I'll share a bit of what I read this morning.
For a sacrament to be valid, the matter, the form and the intention are all needed. The Pope himself cannot change that. The matter is of divine institution; the Pope cannot say "tomorrow we will use alcolhol for the baptism of infants, or milk". Neither can he change the essential of the form. There are essential words; for example one cannot say "I baptize thee in the name of God" because Christ himself has settled the form "Thou shalt baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." The Sacrament of Confirmation has been equally maltreated. One formula current today is "I sign thee with the Cross, and receive the Holy Spirit". But the minister does not then specify what is the special grace of the sacrament by which the Holy Spirit gives Himself, and the sacrament is invalid.
That is why I always respond to the requests of parents who have doubts regarding the validity of the confirmation received by their children or who fear it will be administered invalidly, seeing what goes on around them. The cardinals to whom I had to explain myself in 1975 reproached me on this and since then similar reproaches are repeated through the press on all my journeys. I explained why I carried on in this way. I meet the wishes of the faithful whoask me for valid confirmation, even if it is not licit, because we are in a period when divine law, natural and supernatural, has precedence over positive ecclesiastical law when the latter opposes the former instead of being a channel to transmit it. We are passing through an extraordinary crisis and there need be no surprise if I sometimes adopt an attitude that is out of the ordinary....
This is why Catholics in this latter part of the twentieth century have a duty to be more vigilant than their fathers were. They must not let just any idea be imposed upon them, in the name of the new theology or the new religion: for what this new religion wants is not what the Church wills.
The archbishop also describes the importance of the priest's intention. The priest may have lost the faith, but if he continues to will what the Church wills, the sacraments he confects are valid. Can anyone today doubt that many priests do not will what the Church wills? I think of Fr. James Martin, S.J. so beloved by Francis. While I cannot read his soul, only God can, I could never be confident that a sacrament he confected was valid. Are his Masses valid? His baptisms? His confessions? Only God knows, but part of the "vigilance" the archbishop describes must involve confidence in our priests. And that was his primary concern in establishing the SSPX.
I heartily recommend the book, a path away from confusion and chaos. Archbishop Lefebvre is always clear. His love for the Church despite the many accusations against him is also clear. He loved the Church, the papacy, and the priesthood. Because of the faith-filled seminarians begging for his help, Lefebvre preserved the orthodoxy of the priesthood, the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and the other sacraments so deformed after the council.
If you think traditionalists only cling to the TLM out of nostalgia for the bells, incense and Gregorian chant, you've missed the big picture. It's about all of the sacraments! Read Dan Graham's book Lex Orandi. The book illustrates how much we have lost.
May Pope Leo XIV lead us back to the narrow path that leads straight to God and away from the primrose path of dalliance where the flower children of the sixties and the powder puff masqueraders dance behind Bacchus and his revelers on the way to ultimate destruction. Lord Jesus, have mercy on us. O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Let us pray with zeal for Pope Leo and Holy Mother Church and especially for the priests who minister to us.
That’s a great analogy, spatial and spiritual disorientation.
ReplyDeleteI was a military and commercial pilot in my prior career, so am very familiar with the concept and reality of what we call “Spatial D”. Every pilot has experienced at some point. Under certain flight conditions, any pilot no matter how experienced, can be at risk. The solution is singular and is certain: *trust your instruments; exclude all else but your essential control instruments … up, down, right, left (attitude indicator); speed and power* - but mostly (95%) the attitude indicator.
And that is like Spiritual D in that same way - Sacred Tradition is our “Attitude Indicator”, which will never fail to tell us what is up, down, right and left - whether we can currently see outside on a clear day, or this dark and stormy and rainy and windy and turbulent. Either way, the attitude indicator (Sacred Tradition) doesn’t lie. Our perceptions and feelings might deceive us, the objective instruments - never!
No. He was chosen a day before the conclave even began and was chosen to oppose Trump on immigration. Suddenly, the day before, all the liberal rags were putting him forth. It was known before the conclave that he was the choice of the deepstate or CIA or the Kabal or Israel whoever you think runs such things.
ReplyDeleteDo you have some evidence for that? I have no doubt there were machinations behind the the scenes, but what proof do you have for the claim he was already chosen before the conclave began?
Delete"Pope" Leo XIV is simply a more intelligent, less crass Francis. "Fr" James Martin is elated...that pretty says it all.
ReplyDeleteIf that's true, we need to pray he follows in the footsteps of Thomas Becket.
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