IN ALL CHARITY – LEARN TO HATE!

We are truly seeing a crisis in the Church, a crisis of Faith, a crisis of discipline; a blurring, to the point of invisibility, of the distinction between Good and Evil.

Only by hating Sin can we overcome it, only by hating the Devil can we resist him. This hatred must be real, as strong and gripping as the keenest love we have ever felt.

The great Bishop Morlino of Madison sums it up in his wonderful letter to his diocese issued last week, reminding us of the Thomist reflection of Christ’s teaching in the Gospel, he writes:

If you’ll permit me, what the Church needs now is more hatred! As I have said previously, St. Thomas Aquinas said that hatred of wickedness actually belongs to the virtue of charity. As the Book of Proverbs says “My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness (Prov. 8:7).” It is an act of love to hate sin and to call others to turn away from sin.

(please read his full letter HERE) 

Our noble Order has for centuries fought the enemies of the Church.  The enemies of the Church are the enemies of Truth, the enemies of Christ. They hate us, and we hate their error. Whether they be Turks, sworn to wipe the Church out of the Mediterranean; or Protestants, who eviscerated our martyrs in the name of a corrupted religion; or the humanitarian disasters we have battled in the last two centuries, Knights of Malta stood firm, and at great personal sacrifice, often to death, fought for Christ’s Truth. No matter that today the enemy is within the Church, our steadfastness is expected of us just the same. There is no comfortable ride.

One cannot fight in battle without knowing the enemy – the pressures of society to turn an ever growing list of sins into virtues can cut no ice with us if we are to win. We must come to "hate the Devil and all his works", these are not empty words we rehearse once a year at Easter.  They are how we save our own souls and the souls of those around us. It is the Devil who guides those who perpetrate evil, be they cardinals, bishops, priests or laymen, and only by hating the sin which grips them, which holds them in stranglehold so they can no longer see their own souls in the image and likeness of God, can we love them enough to pray for the redemption of their souls. Without your prayers these men will go to Hell.

Let it be clear, whatever worldly punishment they deserve, and justly, it is the salvation of their souls we must desire and fight for, and we shall not achieve this by turning a blind eye, or finding some condoning excuse for their depravity, or some administrative damage-limitation procedure.

Every day we have this duty to fight, as more and more people fall away from the Church, through indifference, through the influence of bad men, through corruption of sin; this remnant, those of us who are left must man the defences and carry on the spiritual battle. Many times the garrison in Rhodes and Malta was reduced to a few dozen knights, and yet they won victory after victory, and always with Our Lady’s unfailing help.

Make no mistake, there are no sins lesser than others, every departure from the Truth, on the smallest matter, opens the soul to further attack which it cannot resist. There is a state of grace, or a state of separation from God, there is no middle ground which is ‘just about ok”.

Blessed James Bell, ordained priest under Queen Mary, who had apostatised under Elizabeth, only to be reconciled and martyred in old age, said to the judge when condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered, "I beseech you, my Lord, for the love of God, add also to your former sentence that my lips be pared and my fingers cut off, wherewith I have hithertofore sworn and subscribed to heretical articles, both against my conscience and the truth.'' That is how one should hate sin: with no thought of self.

One hundred years ago last Sunday Our Lady said to the children of Fatima, with an air of great sadness, “Pray, pray hard and make sacrifices for sinners, because many souls will go to Hell because they have no one who will make sacrifices and pray for them.”

Let us, Knights, Dames and Companions of Malta, be those champions of injured souls. Fast, pray, confess, and set a lead by exemplary lives.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for the Church.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for our Order.

Our Lady Queen of the Clergy, pray for our Priests.

THIS CROSS IS WHITE AS SYMBOL OF PURITY...

... WEAR IT OVER YOUR HEART WITH COURAGE!

All of us who are Knights and Dames have sworn to these words. Companions have heard them year after year on Saint John's Day. Live them!

It is the Summer, and the News is always full of much silliness. In our charism of Tuitio Fidei, it is duty of all members of the Order to present the Truth of the Faith when, as must often happen, we are asked, or presented with a particular degree of silliness by our acquaintances.

This week has a particular brand of silliness not far from the long history of our Order. Judicious thought and moderation might often seem to be in short supply on both sides of these arguments.  That is part of Tuitio Fidei for us to supply. Opportunities are not lacking. Challenge for the week!

It is not the place of this blog to enter into polemic or discussion, our role is simply to encourage Friends, Companions and Members of the Order to seek the Truth, and avoid falsehood, and to serve Our Lord and Saviour in the Sick and the Poor.

The Truth remains, nevertheless, an objective fact, however unpalatable today, and clouding it with false comparisons and politically-motivated relativism is not helpful.

We might therefore fruitfully direct your attention to a short blog post by a very sensible writer,  Dr Geoffrey Kirk, which demonstrates good perspective, serves the Truth, and which might assist us to do our duty. HERE.

Charity in all things, and fight for the Truth of Christ's Kingdom in a darkened age. As we have all turned to our Mothers in times of trouble, it would not hurt to ask the female saints of Our Order, who have overseen our struggles for many generations, to guide us, the world, the Church and Her enemies with their prayers at this time, as also for those women being used in other people's battles.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us!

Saint Flora of Beaulieu, pray for us!

Saint Ubaldecsa, pray for us!

Saint Toscana, pray for us!

IT WILL SNOW TOMORROW...

In the baking heat of Summer (aways hot in the Mediterranean, but this year even Britain is getting a taste of it!) Holy Mother Church in Her wisdom and charity offers us joyful Marian feasts to break the stifling monotony of the long season after Pentecost.  Later this month is the glorious feast of the Assumption, which the Order in Britain will this years celebrate at the International Holiday Camp near Arundel, with Mass in the cathedral on the day.

Tomorrow, were it not Sunday, would be the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows. On this hot August day Our Lady made snow fall in Rome on the site She had chosen for a church to be built in Her honour, the oldest Marian church in Christendom – Saint Mary Major, or Our Lady of the Snows.  By custom on this day rose-petals fall from the roof of the Basilica at the Mass, in honour of the mystical snowfall.

In jolly liturgical days in our Own Priory of England, Mass on this day was celebrated in the Conventual Church of Saint John of Jerusalem in St John's Wood, by the late John Canon McDonald. The fall of the petals not quite as had been intended, but the general effect was charming!

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Canon McDonald, and for the Hospital of Saint John and Saint Elizabeth, for the patients and staff, as well as for the board of directors. May they serve God amongst the sick and the dying.

Our Lady of the Snows, pray for us

St John the Baptist, pray for us

Saint Elizabeth, pray for us

TODAY - PORTIUNCULA INDULGENCE

Today is the day upon which every year we may gain the Portiuncula Indulgence, from the afternoon on the 1st August to sunset on the 2nd.  This plenary indulgence may only be applied to the Souls in Purgatory, by the act of visiting a church following Confession and receiving Holy Communion. It is thus one of the greatest Acts of Charity we can perform, to release a soul from Purgatory. Why would one not do this?

The Indulgence was granted miraculously to Saint Francis on a night of great temptation, in which he is said to have rolled as mortification in a briar-bush which became a bush of sweet thornless roses.  Originally it required a visit to the cell where he died, now in the basilica at Portiuncula (see photo above) about a mile from Assisi, but by successive Popes, in their great mercy, has been granted more and more liberally until today any church may be visited to gain this indulgence. (This privilege has been finally established for an indefinite time by a decree of the S. Cong. of Indul., 26 March, 1911 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, III, 1911, 233-4), and reformed and confirmed by Pope Paul VI in "Indulgentiarum Doctrina" (1967). This Apostolic Constitution established that a Plenary Indulgence may be gained only once a day.)

The obligations are the usual ones of Confession and Holy Communion, ideally on the day, and recitation of the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, and prayer for the Holy Father's intentions, carried out with the will to gain the indulgence, and a detachment from sin. That is all. The indulgence may be gained on each of the two days, thus twice, assisting two souls.

Please make the effort to do this wonderful charitable work today!

For more information see HERE.