DYING AND BEHOLD WE LIVE

Hello Everyone:
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This post is a continuation of the Easter Day post. More words from Bishop Sheen from his book, "The Divine Romance". I would like to mention, since it is relevant to this writing by Bishop Sheen, that the burning of the Notre Dame is very tragic. I can say with strong conviction that it is the work of the devil and the Freemasons who are setting the stage in the world for a One World Order, Government and Church. There have been many church burnings all over Europe and especially in France. Many are caused by the Islamist terrorists BUT I do not believe the Notre Dame tragedy was an Islamic terrorist attack just like the 9/11 was not a terrorist attack. Both incidents are too sophisticated and well organized for that. The wood at the Notre Dame is 800 year old oak which is primarily petrified and almost stone like. (Google it)  Only special energy weapons could create the fire that made this damage. The smoke is white to prove this - it would be black if it was a normal "house" fire.  Like the book "1984" by George Orwell- all the media were stating that it is going to be completely lost and that it is an accident (really? so quickly decided?) and there was live streaming! More live streaming than actual help in getting rid of the flames. We need to wake up as a Catholic Church and realize that this is an assault and it will continue. The war has been waging and we are sleeping. The below writing from Bishop Sheen will give us great hope and strength during these trying times. Enjoy!

"Christ lives over again in His Church – the Church – like Christ, not only lives, not only dies, but always rises from the dead. She is in love with death as a condition of birth, and with her, as with Christ, unless there is a Good Friday in her life, there will never be an Easter Sunday; unless there is the crown of thorns, there will never be the halo of light; and unless there is the cross, there will never be the empty tomb. In other words, every now and then the Church must be crucified by an unbelieving world and buried as dead, only to rise again. She never does anything but die, and for that peculiar reason she never does anything but live. Every now and then (Like now!!) the very life seems to have gone out of her; she is pallid with death; her blood seems to have been sapped out of her; her enemies seal the tomb, roll a stone in front of her grave and say: “The Church will never rise again!!” But somehow or other she does rise again.

At least a dozen times in history, the world has buried the Church and each time she has come to life again. A hunted Savior must always have hunted children.

There are times in history also where the yoke of Christ seemed heavy to her children; bodies craved for the line of least resistance (Like now!) and hearts yearned for the flesh pots of Egypt. It is strange but certain fact that the Church is never so weak as when she is powerful with the world, never so poor as when she is rich with the riches of the world; never so foolish as when she is wise with the fancies of the world. She is strongest with Divine Help when she is weakest with human power, for like Peter she is given the miraculous draught of fishes when she admits by her own power she has labored all the night and taken nothing.

When her discipline, her spirit of saintliness, her zeal for Christ, her vigils, and her mortifications become a thing of less importance, the world makes the fatal mistake of believing that her soul is dead and her faith is departed (Like now!) NOT SO!! The faith, even in those days of lesser prayer, is solid, for it is the faith of the centuries; the faith of Jesus Christ! What may be weak is her discipline, her prayerfulness, and her saintliness, for these are of men, whereas her faith is of God. A renewal of spirit, then, will come not by changing her way of thinking, for that is divine, but her way of acting, for that is human.

But the world, failing to make this distinction between the Divine and the human in her, as it failed to make it in Christ, takes her for dead. To the world, her very life seems spent; her heart pierced, her body drained; in its eyes she is just as dead as the Master when taken down from the cross, and there is nothing left to do but to lay her in the sepulcher.

Once more a great stone is rolled before her tomb; the official seal of death placed upon it, the watch set; but as they watch, saintliness comes back, Christ stirs in Peter’s bark, and at the very moment men are saying she is dead, she is seen walking in the glory of her new Easter Morn.

Today – we have a civilization that has become indifferent like Pilate to the answer to the question: “What is Truth?” From inside and outside of the Church springs up the old error that there is no truth – an error, which for want of a knowledge of its ancient ancestry, is called Modernism. Truth is derationalized, error rationalized, and proofs brought forward to prove all proofs are worthless. Minds now are told, and they begin to believe, with the force of repetition, that we must be indifferent to both error and truth; that it is a lack of broad mindedness to make up one’s mind; that it makes no difference whether God exists, whether Christ is God, or whether the sacraments do actually communicate Divine Life; the only thing that matters is the subjective impression such beliefs have upon the feeling of the believer. Minds began to live by catch-words, phases covered up loose thinking, and there was hardly an ear that did not hear such catchwords and phrases as "Life is bigger than logic", and "The Christ of Faith is not the Jesus of History".

The new spirit of the age is seemingly burying the Spirit of Christ. Books and articles are shot from the press, and in 1907 there hardly was an article written that did not say that the Church had now definitely reached its end. (militant Freemasonry inside and outside the Church) The world was asked to chant her Requiem; a great stone was rolled before the door of her sepulchre; the watch set. "She would never rise again." Then came the First World War and the Giant stirred. That which was thought dead was seen on the battlefields pressing a crucifix to dying lips; and when the smoke of battle cleared and the mist lifted, she was seen walking in the glory of her new Easter Morn. 

(Our Lady of Fatima told us that the Eternal Father allows wars as a punishment for sin - get prepared - we are nearing another! - but there will come a new Easter Morn!)

The world should profit by experience and give up expecting the Church to die. Science killed her, and still she was there; history interred her, but still she was alive. Modernism slew her, but still she lives. The Church is constantly finding her way out of the grave because she has a Captain Who found His way out of the grave.  Nothing can rise from the dead except Divinity. The Church is reborn to each new age, and hence is the only new thing in the world. It is the errors that are old, for our so-called new thought (New Age, Modernism, etc) is only an old mistake with a new label. If the Church (as it did during Vatican II in embracing Modernism) marries these passing fads  -- it will be a widow in the next. She is therefore not behind the times, but beyond the times, always fresh while the age is dying.

The Catholic Church should not seek (and has not sought) to overthrow governments, desired to impede progress or persecute those who differ with her - she only desires to bring souls to understand Christ, to thrill human hearts with the LOVE that leaves all others cold and to open eyes to a BEAUTY that leaves all other beauty pain. Its end and purpose will always remain the same - to bring the peace of Christ to the souls of the entire world. This is Divine Truth and truth can not lose."

Holy Mother Mary pray for us!
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy upon us!
 

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