Christ The King

 

It's the Feast of Christ the King today, instituted by Pius XI in 1925 to assert the sovereignty of our Lord in the face of increasing godlessness and godlessness it was. Margaret Sanger, who went on to found Planned Parenthood, expressed its spirit shouting out from her magazine Woman Rebel, "No Gods No Masters!"

That was in 1914, three years before the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and its enraged attack on the Church. In illo tempore the infamous British occultist Aleister Crowley had written, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." And there you have it, your will, not God's, is the rule.

Fast forward to today and the Sangerite spirit's alive and kicking, and if Crowley's do what thou wilt is the movement's creed, then transgenderism and abortion are its unholy sacraments, outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual rebellion against God.

Against this, the Church says no, you are not Gods and there is one true sovereign, Christ, Incarnate, Crucified and Risen, who breaks the power of sin, death and hell from the throne of the Cross. And as he ascended so will he descend, with clouds of glory to judge the quick and the dead, to separate the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats. Message to market?

Get right with him, love him, follow him, and obey his commandments so that when he comes and we see him face to face he will know us as true and loyal subjects, as sheep of his own fold, and welcome us to the green pastures and still waters of paradise.

Oremus:

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in thy well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

 

Viva Cristo Rey,

LSP

The Feast of The Assumption

 

It's the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary today and we offered the Mass outdoors on the front porch of Mission #1, St. Mary's. Check out the ever helpful New Liturgical Movement for some background to the Feast and, in the meanwhile, here's a prayer:

Omnípotens sempiterne Deus, qui Immaculátam Vírginem Maríam, Fílii tui Genitrícem, córpore et ánima ad caelestem gloriam assumpsisti: concéde, quáesumus; ut ad superna semper intenti, ipsíus gloriae mereámur esse consortes. Per eundem Dóminum nostrum.

 

And in English: 

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of Thy Son, body and soul into heavenly glory: grant, we beseech, that ever intent on the things above, we may deserve to be partakers of her glory. Through the same our Lord.

 

Amen and bless you all,

LSP

153 Fish And The Mystic Lamb

Did any of you get to Mass yesterday? If you did, you may have noticed that the disciples caught a miraculous catch of 153 fish under the direction of the Risen Lord. Why 153? Apparently the ancients believed there were 153 different species of fish, and so the catch represents all of humanity. The Gospel is of universal application to all men, everywhere; to put it another way, it's catholic. But here's the detail, from Rebirth of Images:

"Sir Edwyn shews that the number of the miraculous catch, 153, is what the ancients called the triangular power of 17... Here Sir Edwyn stops, because 17 considered in itself is a meaningless number. But we do not need to consider it in itself; we may consider it as the diagonal of the square twelve, as the measure of that river which, issuing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, cuts Paradise from top to bottom. It is then obviously good sense to see the fishes as the ‘fullness’ or the ‘complement’ of the River of Life, just as the citizens are the fullness or complement of the square city.

"But why, we may still ask, does St. John take the triangular power of 17 as its ‘fulness’, rather than the square? The answer is that the square (289) is a meaningless number, whereas the triangular (153) receives an appropriate sense from that very treatise of numbers which St. John found in Solomon’s temple-building. The labour of the building was done by the non-Israelites of Solomon’s dominions; 153 thousand and some odd hundreds were set to work (II Chron. II, 17-18: VIII, 7-8). What could be more appropriate to St. John’s purpose? The miraculous catch, as has long been recognized, signifies Gentile converts: it is these, rather than the Jews, who build up the temple of God, the church."

Some people think that the New Testament is two dimensional, or less. That would be an error. Others think that St. John the Divine had too much time on his hands while in exile on Patmos. Perhaps, but I prefer inspired, holy, brilliance.

God bless,

LSP