It was late in the afternoon when he reached them; but the sun was still lingering above the western hills, and poured his beams wide over the valley, lighting up the old towers and temples of Tenochtitlan with a mellow radiance that little harmonised with the dark scenes of strife in which the city had so lately been involved. The tranquillity of the hour, however, was on a sudden broken by the strange sounds of the great drum in the temple of the war-god... and the soldiers, startled by the mournful vibrations, which might be heard for leagues across the valley, turned their eyes to the quarter whence they proceeded. They there beheld a long procession winding up the huge sides of the pyramid; for the camp of Alvarado was pitched scarcely a mile from the city, and objects are distinctly visible, at a great distance, in the transparent atmosphere of the tableland.
As the long file of priests and warriors reached the flat summit of the teocalli, the Spaniards saw the figures of several men stripped to their waists, some of whom, by the whiteness of their skins, they recognised as their own countrymen. They were the victims for sacrifice. Their heads were gaudily decorated with coronals of plumes, and they carried fans in their hands. They were urged along by blows, and compelled to take part in the dances in honour of the Aztec war-god. The unfortunate captives, then stripped of their sad finery, were stretched one after another on the great stone of sacrifice. On its convex surface, their breasts were heaved up conveniently for the diabolical purpose of the priestly executioner, who cut asunder the ribs by a strong blow with his sharp razor of itztli, and thrusting his hand into the wound, tore away the heart, which, hot and reeking, was deposited on the golden censer before the idol. The body of the slaughtered victim was then hurled down the steep stairs of the pyramid, which, it may be remembered, were placed at the same angle of the pile, one flight below another; and the mutilated remains were gathered up by the savages beneath, who soon prepared with them the cannibal repast which completed the work of abomination!
In reality, however, this is the most difficult petition.
I would have to say that precisely this petition, "Thy will be done" is the ultimate yardstick of faith, the measure by which' one can discern, in oneself first of all, profound from superficial faith, profound religiosity from a false one. Why? Well, because even the most ardent believer all too regularly, if not always, desires, expects, and asks from the God he claims to believe in that God would fulfill precisely his own will and not the will of God.
"Thy will be done"-but in fact we are thinking: "Our will be done," and thus this third petition of the Lord's Prayer is first of all a kind of judgment on us, a judgment of our faith.
Do we really desire that which is from God? Do we really desire to accept that difficult, exalted, that seemingly impossible demand of the Gospel? And this petition also becomes a kind of verification of our goals and directions in life: what is it that I want, what is it that forms the main and highest value of my life, where is that treasure about which Christ said that where it lies, there our hearts will be also (Mt 6:21)?
There is deep evil in this, a satanic revolt, at heart, against God and Man and abortion is its sacrament, the anti-sacrament of an idolatrous anti-god, the Devil. It is the outward expression of an inward and spiritual rebellion against all that’s good and true, a mother’s love for her child, our meaning and fulfillment as a community of persons, against God himself.
Katy Perry's shoes pulled after 'blackface' backlash https://t.co/iWEOQOf3PF pic.twitter.com/o0oKFZCdSo— New York Post (@nypost) February 11, 2019
Just to drive home the point, here is how a late-term abortion — the kind of abortion just legalized in New York — is carried out: as it has been explained by a former abortionist, the baby is injected with a poison directly into his skull or torso. He then suffers a hideously painful death, which he will certainly feel because of his developed nervous system. The mother carries the corpse around in her womb for a day. The next day, there is an ultrasound to check if the baby is dead. If he isn’t — if he has been writhing and suffering in agony for the past 24 hours, clinging onto life — then he will be injected again. The following day, the mother delivers her dead child. Sometimes she delivers him at the clinic, but if she can’t make it on time, the clinic is perfectly happy to recommend that she give birth into her toilet.
We are embracing witchcraft's true roots as the magik of the poor, the downtrodden and disenfranchised and it's history as often the only weapon, the only means of exacting justice available to those of us who have been wronged by men just like him.
The evil has found in the Church a hold. And it is natural for people to believe that there is nothing else to do in the Catholic Church. Maybe many are thinking of leaving the Church. After the terrible experience of 2002, with the abuses, many people left the Church. Now, another opportunity, many people are going to leave. I hope they don’t do, I tell them that they need to stay, that this is the Church of Christ. But if they do, believe me, I understand. Because it is very bad what we have allowed to take place in the Catholic Church in the world. Because this is not only America. In the world! Everywhere! Chile. Ireland. Australia. Everywhere.
If you are Catholic, and you love the Catholic Church, you cannot just say, “Well, let’s pray, let’s offer a couple of rosaries, and we’ll see what happens.” You cannot do that. You have to pray, but pray for truth. You need to pray so God can act. He has begun to act. Who may think that yesterday, that a former Vatican ambassador from the Holy See to the United States was going to write 10, 11 pages letter saying this — asking for the resignation of a pope?! Who may think that? If you had told me that yesterday morning, I wouldn’t have believed you. But that’s what happened.
So, what are we doing now? Where are we going from here? First of all, we must understand one thing. This Church, the Catholic Church, is the Church of Christ. It is the Bride of Christ. St. Paul is right when he said in the letter to the Ephesians, “He has cleansed the Church with His Cross, with His blood.” She is beautiful. We have betrayed her. This is not an abusive church. This is a holy church that has fallen into the hands of abusive, evil men, who are trying to destroy the Church from within, since they couldn’t do it from the outside throughout the centuries.
It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord. The Church’s teaching is clear that the homosexual inclination is not in itself sinful, but it is intrinsically disordered in a way that renders any man stably afflicted by it unfit to be a priest. And the decision to act upon this disordered inclination is a sin so grave that it cries out to heaven for vengeance, especially when it involves preying upon the young or the vulnerable. Such wickedness should be hated with a perfect hatred. Christian charity itself demands that we should hate wickedness just as we love goodness. But while hating the sin, we must never hate the sinner, who is called to conversion, penance, and renewed communion with Christ and His Church, through His inexhaustible mercy.
At the same time, however, the love and mercy which we are called to have even for the worst of sinners does not exclude holding them accountable for their actions through a punishment proportionate to the gravity of their offense. In fact, a just punishment is an important work of love and mercy, because, while it serves primarily as retribution for the offense committed, it also offers the guilty party an opportunity to make expiation for his sin in this life (if he willingly accepts his punishment), thus sparing him worse punishment in the life to come. Motivated, therefore, by love and concern for souls, I stand with those calling for justice to be done upon the guilty.
The sins and crimes of McCarrick, and of far too many others in the Church, bring suspicion and mistrust upon many good and virtuous priests, bishops, and cardinals, and suspicion and mistrust upon many great and respectable seminaries and so many holy and faithful seminarians. The result of the first instance of mistrust harms the Church and the very good work we do in Christ’s name. It causes others to sin in their thoughts, words, and deeds — which is the very definition of scandal. And the second mistrust harms the future of the Church, since our future priests are at stake.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let there be extinguished in you all power of the devil by the imposition of our hands, and by the invocation of the glorious and holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, and of her illustrious Spouse, St. Joseph, and of all the holy Angels, Archangels, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, and of all the saints together. Amen.
