Homily of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau,osb.
Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault
translated from the French
(@ St. Peter of Wisques Abbey,France, December 8, 2014)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
My dearly beloved Sons,
Among the feasts of the liturgical year, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary holds a special place, insofar as its object is a gift granted to a human creature and far exceeding what anybody might have imagined. In the long series of human beings tainted by original sin, Mary is the exception. Blessed Pope Pius IX defined on December 8th, 1854:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by God Almighty, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin. (Bull Ineffabilis Deus) As with the Incarnation in her bosom, this privilege remained unseen by human eyes in Palestine. In Mary and Jesus are concentrated …More

From a sermon by Saint Anselm, bishop
(Oratio 52: PL 158, 955-956)
Virgin Mary, all nature is blessed by you
Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night—everything that is subject to the power or use of man—rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for men or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of men who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendor by men who believe in God. The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God himself, its Creator, it sees him openly, working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb.
Through the fullness of the grace that was given you, dead things rejoice in their …More

From commentary on Isaiah by Eusebius of Caesarea
(Cap. 40: PG 24, 366-367)
The voice in the wilderness
The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. The prophecy makes clear that it is to be fulfilled, not in Jerusalem but in the wilderness: it is there that the glory of the Lord is to appear, and God’s salvation is to be made known to all mankind.
It was in the wilderness that God’s saving presence was proclaimed by John the Baptist, and there that God’s salvation was seen. The words of this prophecy were fulfilled when Christ and his glory were made manifest to all: after his baptism the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove rested on him, and the Father’s voice was heard, bearing witness to the Son: This is my beloved Son, listen to him.
The prophecy meant that God was to come to a deserted place, inaccessible from the beginning. None of the pagans had any knowledge of God, since his holy servants and …More

Posted By Neil Munro On 4:40 PM 09/11/2014 In
Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick offered Islamic religious phrases and insisted that Islam shares foundational rules with Christianity, during a Sept. 10 press conference in D.C.
“In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate,” McCarrick said as he introduced himself to the audience at a meeting arranged by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. That praise of the Islamic deity is an important phrase in Islam, is found more than 100 times in the Koran, and is akin to the Catholic prayer, ”In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
McCarrick next claimed that “Catholic social teaching is based on the dignity of the human person… [and] as you study the holy Koran, as you study Islam, basically, this is what Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, has been teaching.”
McCarrick was 71 when 19 Muslims brought Islam to the public eye by murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11. He is one of the 213 Cardinals of the …More

The Kasper Apostasy
The new approach that Catholic scholars are taking to Jesus and the scriptures ... reflects the presuppositions and procedures [of] Catholic scholars like ... Walter Kasper.... Many of the conclusions of [this] 'liberal consensus' conflict sharply with traditional Catholic doctrine.... [It's] major achievement ... seems to be bringing the church to what can be called the end of Catholicism.... [The point] is not to salvage Catholicism or Christianity but to let go of them... to help people leave the church with a good conscience.
- Thomas Sheehan, The New York Review of Books,1984
• [A] divine intervention in the sense of a directly visible action of God is theological nonsense. (Jesus the Christ, 1974)
• God’s relation to Moses in the Burning Bush is not “I Am,” but “I am with you. I am for you.” (7/5/14)
• The Church is not against birth control at all. ... it’s [the couple's] personal conscience and their personal responsibility. (5/5/14)
• So if [the divorced-…More