what we need is a heavy dose of Divine humility

In order to be able to commune with divine things,
it is necessary to agree to acknowledge that one is radically unworthy of them.
Unless we enter into fear and adoration, we never arrive at love and union.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
from his book, The Day Is Now Far Spent

(the adultress scene from The Passion of the Christ)

We are all unworthy.

Each and every last one of us.

Unworthy of what you ask?

Unworthy of Divine Grace.

But you probably don’t care about Divine Grace because you either don’t
know what it is or you simply don’t believe in such.

Yet most of us feel that we are more than worthy…worthy of whatever we may want…
This is because we readily believe that we are better than the man or woman who stands next to us,
across from us, in front of or behind us…that is our smug arrogance.

A smug arrogance that only grows with each passing day.

We hear that smug arrogance.
We see that smug arrogance.
We live that smug arrogance.

The opposite of such is humility–

Humility..the freedom from pride or arrogance…

It is becoming more and more clear with each passing day…
we human beings are in desperate need of being saved from ourselves.
Saved from our seething pride and arrogance.

and in turn…simply being saved.
Yet the irony is that we are not worthy of saving or of being saved.

We’ve seen the news,
we’ve read the articles,
we’ve seen the pictures…
We hear the anger.
We feel the rising tension, the division, the hate.

Humility.
Saving.
Grace…

He who had no sin became sin… for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21)

Our hope, our salvation.

“Although we feel the humiliation keenly when we are insulted, persecuted, or calumniated,
this does not mean that we cannot suffer such trials with sentiments of true humility,
subjecting nature to reason and faith, and sacrificing the resentment of our
self-love to the love of God.
We are not made of stone, so that we need be insensible or senseless in order to be humble.
Of some martyrs we read that they writhed under their torments;
of others, that they more or less rejoiced in them,
according to the greater or lesser degree of unction they received from the Holy Ghost;
and all were rewarded by the crown of glory, as it is not the pain or the feeling
that makes the martyr, but the supernatural motive of virtue.
In the same way some humble persons feel pleasure in being humiliated,
and some feel sadness, especially when weighted down with calumny;
and yet they all belong to the sphere of the humble,
because it is not the humiliation nor the suffering alone which makes the soul humble,
but the interior act by which this same humiliation is accepted and received through
motives of Christian humility, and especially of a desire to resemble Jesus Christ,
who though entitled to all the honors the world could offer Him,
bore humiliation and scorn for the glory of His eternal Father.”
Fr. Cajetan da Bergamo,
p. 19-20
An Excerpt Fromm
Humility Of Heart

Pandemics and pandemonium

It is urgent for the modern world to regain a faith perspective.
Otherwise, mankind is headed for its destruction.
The Church cannot confine herself to a merely social vision.
Charity has a spiritual meaning. Charity is closely related to God’s silence.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
from The Power of Silence

(within the all cosumming seaweed are a few little gems /Rosemary, Beach / Julie Cook / 2020)

I got away for a few days…away from most of the distractions of our time.
I saw little in the way of a pandemic and I saw less in the way of civil pandamonium.
I was thankful, relieved and found some needed clarity, of which I will share in the coming days.

But what I do know is that time is of the essence—
the time for decision making is now…

There is a terrible and all encompassing suffocating mass now washing up on
the shore or our world.

It threatens our very existence.

Yet most who call themselves Believers are opting to ignore what has
washed up at their feet…pretending nothing is there.

They step over it while ignoring the rotting stench.

(masses of seaweed washing ashore / Rosemary Beach, FL / Julie Cook / 2020)

A decision is looming.

It will require conviction.
It will require resolve.
It will require fortitude.

More to follow…

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve,
whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River,
or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15

the mystery of Judas; the Church’s dark night of the soul

“We (the Church) are experiencing the mystery of iniquity,
the mystery of betrayal, the mystery of Judas”
Robert Cardinal Sarah

(The Taking of Jesus by Caravaggio 1602 / The National Gallery of Ireland / Dublin)

A couple of weeks back I highlighted a small intro to a new book offering by the Guinea Catholic
prelate Robert Cardinal Sarah…
a man who minces no words when it comes to God’s commands to man.

He is a staunch advocate for the Christian faith and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
A true defender of the faith.
And a man who viscerally recognizes the sins of the Chruch, the sins of those entrusted
with shepherding the fold.

I pre-ordered this latest book offering, The Day Is Now Far Spent
It is a book that is based on a conversation between the Cardinal and the French journalist
Nicolas Diat

The book arrived today via the mail and just so you know,
the first two introductory pages are already more yellow than they are
white and black as I have highlighted almost every word.

Cardinal Sarah’s voice has been long needed…not only for the Catholic Chruch but for our
entire Global Christian Church.

Cardinal Sarah addresses, head-on, the sexual abuse scandal that is taking the
Catholic Chruch to her knees.
He addresses the dire situation the West is currently facing regarding her very foundation…
that being her Judaeo/Christian cornerstone.
He addresses the growing crisis of faith.
A crisis that is eating away at the very core of Christianity.
As we are living in a post-Christian culture that reviles the Christian faith.

The Cardinal explains that in his first book,
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise,
he had invited us all to learn the gift of silence…
however, today, the Cardinal finds that he can remain silent no more.

“I must no longer remain silent.
Christians are disoriented.
Every day from all sides, I receive calls for help from those who no longer know what to believe.
…The Chruch is experiencing the dark night of the soul.
The mystery of iniquity is enveloping and blinding her.”

As Pope VI used to say, we are being invaded by the smoke of
Satan. The Church, which ought to be a place of light, has become a dwelling place of darkness.
It ought to be a secure, peaceful family home, but look: it has become a den of thieves!”

“Following Jesus, the Chruch is experiencing the mystery of scourging.
Her body is lacerated.
Who is inflicting the lashes?
The very ones who ought to love and protect her?
Yes I make so bold as to borrow the words of Pope Francis: the mystery of Judas hangs over our time
The mystery of betrayal oozes from the walls of the Church.”

I am both deeply encouraged as well as deeply concerned reading what this solider
of the Cross has to say to all of us regarding our faith and that of the Church in general.

We need to be mindful that there is indeed a smoky veil that is engulfing our faith.
Those of us in the West are under dire persecutions albeit on a vastly different level
than that our brothers and sisters around the globe who live in a physical peril for
holding fast to their beliefs.

Ours is more an insidious downward spiral…a psychological attack.
Add in the culture of death that both Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa each
addressed as a key contributor to the demise of Christianity in the West along, with the
death of the traditional family and we have a toxic mix for our own totality of loss.

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing more of this insightful man’s wisdom.

Let us pray for the global Christian body of believers as we must arm ourselves against
Satan’s attacks.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5

mincing no words

“At the root of the collapse of the West, there is a cultural identity crisis.
The West no longer knows and does not want to know who made it,
who established it, as it was and as it is.
Many countries today ignore their own history.
This is self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the
path to new, barbaric civilizations.”
Robert Cardinal Sarah

(Cardinal Sarah)

Many of you may or may not be familiar with Cardinal Sarah.

I’ve quoted and even mentioned Cardinal Sarah before.

I am not Catholic, but having been raised in the Episcopal Chruch,
I have always been considered Catholic lite… or so they say…
of which I take as a compliment.

But I want you to know that despite my not being a Catholic, I have always felt
encouraged when ever reading Cardinal Sarah’s words.

He does not mince his words.
He does not apologize for those words.
And he always takes God at His word while never looking back.

That is such a refreshing stand in a time of endless apologies, backtracking, politicizing,
and the current persecution of Christians in, of all places, Western Civilization.

Robert Sarah was born in 1945 in Ourous, a village in then rural French Guinea.
His parents were both Christian converts.
Sarah began his religious studies at the age of 12.

With ongoing conflicts within Guinea, Sarah eventually completed his schooling in both
France and Senegal with his final ordination studies in both Rome and Jerusalem.
He was ordained in 1969, serving as a priest and eventual bishop in Guinea.
Both pope’s Benedict and Francis elevated Sarah to first cardinal deacon then
eventually Cardinal in 2013.

What we know about Africa, Cardinal Sarah’s home nation, is that it is the fastest-growing
Christian nation on the planet.
And it is a bastion of a conservative perspective on God’s word and of Christianity.
Meaning, the global Christian Chruch in Africa does not mince God’s word.
If God said it, then it is so…end of sentence.

There is no deciphering, interpreting, or rewriting to suit the whims of the times.

In a time in which Christianity is under tremendous attack and Christians are facing
all sorts of persecutions, Africa offers Christianity hope.

Cardinal Sarah makes no excuses for his Christian faith, his African Christianity,
his Catholicism and no excuses for what many claim to be politically incorrect
stances on Christianity.

Cardinal Sarah has been very vocal, as well as pointed with his words, regarding ISIS,
Radical Isalm, gender identity, LGBTQ lifestyles, mass immigration, abortion,
the current demise of the traditional family, and the current seemingly
demise of Western Civilization.

The good Cardinal says that he “considers that the decadence of our time has
all the faces of mortal peril.”
He has also stated that ‘Gender Ideology is a Luciferean Refusal’
of the Sexual Nature Given to Us by God.

There are no apologies for such wording as he speaks with only the
word of God as his guide.

Cardinal Sarah has a new book to be released in September…
The Day Is Now Far Spent.

The publisher’s review is telling…

In this powerful book by the acclaimed spiritual leader and best-selling writer,
one he calls his “most important”, he analyzes the profound spiritual,
moral and political crisis in the contemporary world.
He says that he “considers that the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril.”

“At the root of the collapse of the West, there is a cultural identity crisis.
The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not
want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is.
Many countries today ignore their own history.
This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new,
barbaric civilizations.”

In these words, Cardinal Sarah summarizes the theme of his book.
His finding is simple: our world is on the brink of the abyss.
Crisis of faith and of the Church, decline of the West, betrayal by its elites,
moral relativism, endless globalism, unbridled capitalism, new ideologies,
political exhaustion, movements inspired by Islamist totalitarianism…
The time has come for an unflinching diagnosis.

While making clear the gravity of the crisis through which the West has gone,
the Cardinal demonstrates that it is possible to avoid the hell of a world without God,
a world without man, a world without hope.

After the great international success of his first two books,
God or Nothing and The Power of Silence,
Cardinal Sarah offers a wide-ranging reflection on the crisis of the contemporary
world while teaching many important spiritual lessons.

I look forward to reading this latest book by this ardent soldier of the Faith,
and I am thankful that there are prelates, clergy, and
men of the cloth who will not apologize nor back down in the face of mounting backlash,
criticism or persecution—

In the word of God, there are no mistakes…there is no mincing of His word…

So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth:
it shall not return to Me void [without producing any effect, useless],
but it shall accomplish that which I please and purpose,
and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11