Certainty of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

"'Christ who died on the cross, whose side was pierced with a lance, whose body lay cold and bloodless in the tomb, is risen from the dead; what we have seen with our eyes and touched with our hands, we declare; we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard; by a man came death into the world, and by a man the resurrection of the dead; in Adam all died, in Christ all shall be made alive. God raised up the crucified Nazarene, of this we are all witnesses. He died according to the Scriptures. He appeared to Peter, and to James, and to all the Apostles; then He was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once. He ate and drank and conversed with us, and before our eyes, He was taken up into Heaven. Stephen saw Him standing at the right hand of God; in the splendor of celestial glory He appeared to Saul.'

"This is the unwavering testimony of the Apostles to the resurrection and glorified life of Jesus and to His never-ending influence on the fortunes of mankind. This faith is as strongly rooted in them as the consciousness of their own existence.

"If their testimony is not true, what testimony is true? If we doubt the simple, definite, unanimous story of the Evangelists, the blood-sealed testimony of the Apostles, can we believe anything? Must we not despair of ever attaining truth on testimony? If these were deceived, then all the impressions registered by our senses, by sight, touch, and hearing, are illusions. It is an illusion when a thousand sane men and women see the sun shine at midday, when ten thousand hear the roar of the storm wind that uproots the giants of the forest. If these men deceived, then we are not sure of our lives in the company of our dearest friends. If the Resurrection of Jesus is not a fact, a reality, then all is a delusion and an idle dream."

Quoted from: Catholic Apologetics Book IV by Fr. John Laux

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Weep Not for Me But for Your Children

And there followed Him a great multitude of people, and of women, who bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus turning to them, said: Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over Me; but weep for yourselves, and for your children (Luke 23:27-28)

What did the words of our Lord mean?  Haydock's Bible Commentary provides the insightful meaning of these words:

If you knew the evils that threaten and must soon fall upon your city, upon yourselves, and upon your children, you would preserve your tears to deplore your own misfortunes. My death is for the good of mankind; but it will be fatal to your nation because you have been pleased to make it so. In the ruin of Jerusalem, which is at hand, happy shall they be who have no children. They shall save themselves the grief of seeing their sons and daughters perish miserably, and in some sort of suffering as many deaths as they have children to die. Calmet.

Yet, in a mystical sense, they also apply to us. Our Lord's death was the most efficacious death in the history of the world. But we live in a world that has divorced itself from God. Even the Church is undergoing an immense Passion and Trial in the world brought about by the sins of her members. We are right to weep and lament the Passion and cruelty inflicted on our Lord, but we should weep greater for souls who are actually lost and go to hell.

How much penance are we doing these days of the Triduum for souls that are far from God? Our Lady of Fatima has asked for penance repeatedly. Let us offer all of our sufferings and penances of these final hours of Lent for the conversion of souls and for reparation of sin.

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Traditional Catholic Prayer for Vocations by Pope Pius XII

Lord Jesus, High Priest and universal Shepherd, Thou hast taught us to pray, saying: "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest" [Matt. 9: 38]. Therefore we beseech Thee graciously to hear our supplications and raise up many generous souls who, inspired by Thy example and supported by Thy grace, may conceive the ardent desire to enter the ranks of Thy sacred ministers in order to continue the office of Thy one true priesthood.

Although Thy priests live in the world as dispensers of the mysteries of God, yet their mission demands that they be not men of this world. Grant, then, that the insidious lies and vicious slanders directed against the priesthood by the malignant enemy and abetted by the world through its spirit of indifference and materialism may not dim the brilliance of the light with which they shine before men, nor lessen the profound and reverent esteem due to them. Grant that the continual promotion of religious instruction, true piety, purity of life and devotion to the highest ideals may prepare the groundwork for good vocations among youth.

May the Christian family, as a nursery of pure and pious souls, become the unfailing source of good vocations, ever firmly convinced of the great honor that can redound to our Lord through some of its numerous offspring. Come to the aid of Thy Church, that always and in every place she may have at her disposal the means necessary for the reception, promotion, formation and mature development of all the good vocations that may arise. For the full realization of all these things, O Jesus, Who art most zealous for the welfare and salvation of all, may Thy graces continually descend from heaven to move many hearts by their irresistible force; first, the silent invitation; then generous cooperation; and finally perseverance in Thy holy service.

Art Thou not moved to compassion, O Lord, seeing the crowds like sheep without a shepherd, without anyone to break for them the bread of Thy word, or to lead them to drink at the fountains of Thy grace, so that they are continually in danger of becoming a prey to ravening wolves? Does it not grieve Thee to behold so many unplowed fields where thorns and thistles are allowed to grow in undisputed possession? Art Thou not saddened that many of Thy gardens, once so green and productive, are now on the verge of becoming fallow and barren through neglect?

O Mary, Mother most pure, through whose compassion we have received the holiest of priests; O glorious Patriarch St. Joseph, perfect model of cooperation with the Divine call; O holy priests, who in Heaven compose a choir about the Lamb of God: obtain for us many good vocations in order that the Lord's flock, through the support and government of vigilant shepherds, may attain to the enjoyment of the most delightful pastures of eternal happiness.

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Holy Week Reflection

Guest Post by David Martin

Each year on Palm Sunday we commemorate Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem when He cleansed the temple of the money changers and those who had sought to profane the temple with their worldly ways.

This pivotal Lent of 2019 is the appropriate time to bring it home and to reflect on how we can assist Christ in cleansing His temple, especially, on how we might encourage the good bishops to take the whip to those clerical clowns in the Eternal City that have sought to profane the temple with their perfidious errors and changes.

Unfortunately, the cult of Freemasonry exerts great control over the Church at this time, which accounts for the widely held error that the Church is an ongoing, evolutionary process that goes through phases of change over time. As these modernists see it, anything the Church holds to at any given point of its history is the result of a general consensus or “collective conscience,“ as if the Church were a democracy to decide doctrine, when in fact the matter of doctrine has already been decided for us from above.

That is to say, the Church is a Divine Monarchy ruled by the King of kings, “with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.” (James: 1:17) As such, the doctrines of the Faith are not something that can change or develop but are eternally set in stone for our instruction. (Matthew 24: 35)
Lent is a time to cleanse ourselves and to return to the tradition of the Faith, but this applies especially to today’s Vatican hierarchy. It is high time that the Church’s ruling body clean house and take the whip to those money-changes, homosexuals, and heretics that are polluting the temple with their antics and doctrinal germs. It is time they go upon their knees and declare that we as Church have sinned in God’s eyes for allowing humanism, modernism, and change to defile Christ’s legacy.

Without this done, where is their Lenten penance? Their Holy Week solemnity is then reduced to an empty formality, and it is anticipated that this year’s ceremonies in Rome will be another farcical tool to advance Islam and political LGBT agenda. What next, will the pope wash the feet of gays and transgenders? Will the bishops stand by and watch the show or will they finally speak up to correct a situation that is offensive to God and destructive to His people?

Each year at the Easter Vigil we are asked, “Do you renounce Satan and all his pomps and all his works,” as we say, “I do.” Let Francis and his bishops live up to that this year by rejecting all that Satan has given them, i.e. Vatican II ecumenism, modernism, change, lest this year’s observance again be filled with empty pomp void of the work of God.

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