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Pontevedra: 100 Years of Disobedience to the Queen of Heaven | The Fatima Center

A Brief History
On June 13, 1917, at Fatima, Our Lady – for the first time in history – visibly revealed Her Immaculate Heart.
Sister Lucia reported: “In front of the palm of Our Lady’s right hand was a Heart encircled by thorns that pierced It. We understood that this was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humanity and seeking reparation.”
At the same time, the Blessed Virgin Mary announced a great design of God’s providence for the whole world.
“Jesus wishes to make use of you to make Me known and loved. He wills to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. To whoever embraces this devotion I promise salvation; these souls shall be dear to God, as flowers placed by Me to adorn His throne. … My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”
On July 13, 1917, Our Lady showed the three shepherd children of Fatima a vision of hell, saying to them.
“You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God …

substack.com

The Winged Tabernacles of the Middle Ages

Abbot Suger was one of those monumental men whose lives and personalities would seem almost incredible had they not lived in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Well known today as a pivotal figure in the development of Gothic architecture, he was in fact of such diverse and admirable abilities as to merit a term like “Renaissance man”—which of course raises the question of why this term even exists, when so many to whom it applies predated the Renaissance. Let us say quite simply, then, that Suger was a “medieval man.”1
A medieval depiction of the construction of a medieval—more specifically, a Gothic—structure. (Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Born in 1081 to a relatively humble family, the young Suger showed enough intellectual promise to be sent to the abbey of Saint-Denis for a monastic education. He rose through the ranks, eventually becoming secretary to the abbot and a trusted adviser to the king of France. A devout and cultured but not particularly ascetic …

substack.com

How a Convert Tried to Bring the Whole World into the Catholic Church

onepeterfive.com

In Illo Tempore: 1st Sunday of Advent

The essence of a cliché is that it is unoriginal and often repeated, yet repetita iuvant because repetition forms and reforms us. Holy Mother Church, with maternal solicitude, gives us again the 1st Sunday of Advent, and again we say that with this day a new liturgical year begins. Perhaps this is not cliché at all, for the faithful need the reminder that the Church unfolds salvation history through a cycle that is centuries deep and millennia long, presenting ever anew the mysteries of the life of the Savior. Repetitio est mater studiorum, so we crowd together around the sacred mysteries and recapitulate the truths they contain. Liturgy is doctrine. We are our rites. To borrow from St. Thomas Aquinas, quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur. The transformation worked in us by grace and doctrine depends on our receptivity. The mysteries do not change, but we do. The paper cup must become more like the swimming pool if it is to receive what is poured out with divine liberality. …

onepeterfive.com

Thanksgiving and the New England Inheritance

The year decays, November’s blast
Through leafless boughs pipes shrill and drear;
With warmer love the home clasps fast
The hands, the hearts, the friends most dear.
On many seas men sail the fleet
Of hopes as fruitless as the foam;
They roam the world with restless feet,
But find no sweeter spot than home.
To-day with quickened hearts they hear
Old times, old voices chime and call;
The dreams of many a vanished year
Sit by them at this festival.
Though hearts that warmed them once are cold.
Though heads are hoar with winter frost
That once were bright with tangled gold —
Thanks for the blessings kept or lost.
—Anon., “Thanksgiving Day.”
Another Thanksgiving Day has come. For me it is a bittersweet holiday, in a way that Christmas never is. At first bush, that does not make a great deal of sense, given that both observances share the same memories of now-deceased loved ones. But I suppose it is because Christmas has a transcendent meaning and life all of its own, to which anyone’s …

rorate-caeli.blogspot.com

Theological Audacity and Confusion: On the Marian Document

The following has been contributed to Rorate by a reader.
Two crucial problems with the DDF document deserve to be emphasized.
The first is the document’s woefully impoverished understanding of the current theology of why Mary is Co-redemptrix. This problem is most clearly shown in footnote 32, which describes three positions, all of which rely entirely on Mary’s cooperation with Christ and on her merits.
In the maximalist view, held by St. Maximilian Kolbe, Mary becomes Co-redemptrix ontologically at the Immaculate Conception, prior to any action or merit of Mary’s, when she is made spouse of the Holy Ghost, when the Holy Ghost, who is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception, is united quasi-hypostatically with Mary. This is the language that Kolbe uses. As such, she is Co-redemptrix entirely independently of any of her merits, thus making the document’s subsequent distinction between meriting de congruo and de condigno, on this view, not germane.
The second problem relates to the …