Amo Jesum amore Mariae; amo Mariam amore Jesu --Drużbicki

"I love Jesus with the love of Mary; I love Mary with the love of Jesus."

Thus the epitaph on the tomb of Kasper Drużbicki, SJ (1589 - 1682), author of the Opera ascetica, whose tongue is incorrupt.

Father Drużbicki "...was one of the main theologians and mystics of his times, the founder of the Polish school of spirituality (along with Mikołaj Łęczycki), and the worldwide precursor of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, before the apparitions of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690)." Wikipedia

He also promoted a new devotion called Mancipium Mariae (slavery of Mary), before Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673 -1716). There are devotions in Drużbicki which are later found in Montfort (e.g. to the Eternal Wisdom and the Total Consecration to Mary).

Here is a relevant passage from the Opera ascetica on the Total Consecration to The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, "the Woman clothed with the sun."

Et tuae igitur partes fuerunt, operam omnem dare, ut totes fieres mulieri huic sole amictæ, solique justitiæ amicissimæ, quam simillimus, quam vicinissimus, quam familiarissimus. Tuæ partes fuerunt, operum omnem dare, ut totus in MARIAM transires, totus in affectum erga MARIAM migrares, totus MARIAE laudes spirares, totus Mariae honor esses, honoresque ubique plantares, totus Mariæ peculium, patrimonium, possessio, hæreditas, hæreditatisque proventus fieres, perinde uti etiam hæc omnia, infinitiesque plura & majora tibi est Maria, tibi sunt in Maria, tibi sunt per Mariam, sunt tibi propter Mariam.

Opera omnia ascetica, Kasper Druzbicki, SJ.

Provisionum senectutis, Pars I, Provisio VI: Per Imitationem Pretiosissime Dei Matris quam perfectissimam.

On Quiet

The message is not easy to translate.

It's about noise. It says that noise is not good and that good is not noisy.

I think the best way to get at it is with a word-for-word slavish translation, so that nothing is lost, even though it turns out to be a bit awkward, though not incorrect, English.

"Noise does not good.
Good does not noise."

Le bruit ne fait pas de bien et le bien ne fait pas de bruit !

Saint Vincent de Paul , Maximes spirituelles

Strepitus bonum non facit,
et bonum non strepit.

Amoris Laetitia is a Gnostic Corruption of Catholic Doctrine

Here are a few excerpts from Cardinal Müller's recent "First Things" article, under the rubric of the gnostic corruption of the faith in Amoris Laetitia.

"Irenaeus...compared Christian doctrine to a mosaic whose stones were arranged to reproduce the image of the King. In his view, the Gnostics had taken the same stones, but had changed their order. Now, instead of the likeness of the King, they have formed the image of a fox, the deceiver.

"One can in fact sin against the Catholic faith not only by denying some of its contents, but also by reformulating its formal principles of knowledge...

"...[T]he pope, as a 'private person' (Lumen Gentium n. 25) or brother among brothers, cannot prescribe his personal theology and lifestyle or the spirituality of his religious order to the whole Church. Obedience as a religious vow is different from the obedience of faith that every Catholic owes to revelation and to its ecclesial mediation. The bishops are bound to obey the pope because of his judicial primacy and not on account of a personal vow they have taken. The papal and episcopal offices are at the service of preserving the unity of faith and communion. Therefore, it is among the pope's and bishops' first duties to prevent polarization and the rise of partisan mentalities.

"All this means that in the exercise of its teaching ministry, it is not enough for the Church's Magisterium simply to appeal to its judicial or disciplinary power as if its teachings were nothing but a matter of legal and doctrinal positivism. Rather, the Magisterium must seek to present a convincing case, showing how its presentation of the faith is in itself coherent and in continuity with the rest of Tradition. The authority of the papal Magisterium rests on its continuity with the teachings of previous popes...

"....[And for bishops' statements] to be orthodox, it is not enough that they declare their conformity with the pope's presumed intentions in Amoris Lætitia. They are orthodox only if they agree with the words of Christ preserved in the deposit of faith. Similarly, when cardinals, bishops, priests, and laity ask the pope for clarity on these matters, what they request is not a clarification of the pope's opinion. What they seek is clarity regarding the continuity of the pope's teaching in Amoris Lætitia with the rest of tradition...

"[Blessed John Cardinal Newman says that in the eyes of the world the Church is] 'a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and holding all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel; it is a well-organized, well-disciplined body.' This communion 'is spread over the known world; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the whole from its continuity,' and it is 'a natural enemy to governments external to itself; it is intolerant and engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of society; it breaks laws, it divides families. It is a gross superstition; it is charged with the foulest crimes; it is despised by the intellect of the day...And there is but one communion such. Place this description before Pliny or Julian; place it before Frederick the Second or Guizot...Each knows at once, without asking a question, who is meant by it.'"

Cristo de la Buena Muerte, Jueves Santo, Málaga

Nadie en el Tercio sabía

quién era aquel legionario

tan audaz y temerario

que en la Legión se alistó.

Nadie sabía su historia,

mas la Legión suponía

que un gran dolor le mordía

como un lobo el corazón.

Más si alguno quién era le preguntaba,

con dolor y rudeza le contestaba:

Soy un hombre a quien la suerte

hirió con zarpa de fiera,

soy un novio de la muerte

que va a unirse en lazo fuerte

con tan leal compañera.

Cuando más rudo era el fuego

y la pelea más fiera,

defendiendo su Bandera,

el legionario avanzó.

Y sin temer al empuje

del enemigo exaltado,

supo morir como un bravo

y la enseña rescató.

Y al regar con su sangre la tierra ardiente,

murmuró el legionario con voz doliente:

Soy un hombre a quien la suerte

hirió con zarpa de fiera,

soy un novio de la muerte

que va a unirse en lazo fuerte

con tal leal compañera.

Cuando al fin le recogieron,

entre su pecho encontraron

una carta y un retrato

de una divina mujer.

Y aquella carta decía:

"...si algún día Dios te llama,

para mí un puesto reclama

que a buscarte pronto iré".

Y en el último beso que le enviaba,

su postrer despedida le consagraba:

Por ir a tu lado a verte,

mi más leal compañera,

me hice novio de la muerte,

la estreché con lazo fuerte

y su amor fue mi Bandera.

Cathedra Sancti Petri Apostoli

The Cathedra is suspended by Saints, left to right,

Ambrose, Athanasius, Chrysostom and Augustine.

The two great Western and Eastern and Fathers.

The Western Fathers, Ambrose and Augustine are mitered and in front.

BENEDICT XVI GENERAL AUDIENCE

(Feast of the Cathedra of Saint Peter, the first of His Pontificate)
Wednesday, 22 February 2006

"On this rock I will build my Church'

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, the Latin-rite liturgy celebrates the Feast of the Chair of St Peter. This is a very ancient tradition, proven to have existed in Rome since the fourth century. On it we give thanks to God for the mission he entrusted to the Apostle Peter and his Successors.

"Cathedra" literally means the established seat of the Bishop, placed in the mother church of a diocese which for this reason is known as a "cathedral"; it is the symbol of the Bishop's authority and in particular, of his "magisterium", that is, the evangelical teaching which, as a successor of the Apostles, he is called to safeguard and to transmit to the Christian Community.

When a Bishop takes possession of the particular Church that has been entrusted to him, wearing his mitre and holding the pastoral staff, he sits on the cathedra. From this seat, as teacher and pastor, he will guide the journey of the faithful in faith, hope and charity.

So what was the "Chair" of St Peter? Chosen by Christ as the "rock" on which to build the Church (cf. Mt 16: 18), he began his ministry in Jerusalem, after the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost. The Church's first "seat" was the Upper Room, and it is likely that a special place was reserved for Simon Peter in that room where Mary, Mother of Jesus, also prayed with the disciples.

Subsequently, the See of Peter was Antioch, a city located on the Oronte River in Syria, today Turkey, which at the time was the third metropolis of the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria in Egypt. Peter was the first Bishop of that city, which was evangelized by Barnabas and Paul, where "the disciples were for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11: 26), and consequently where our name "Christians" came into being. In fact, the Roman Martyrology, prior to the reform of the calendar, also established a specific celebration of the Chair of Peter in Antioch.

From there, Providence led Peter to Rome. Therefore, we have the journey from Jerusalem, the newly born Church, to Antioch, the first centre of the Church formed from pagans and also still united with the Church that came from the Jews. Then Peter went to Rome, the centre of the Empire, the symbol of the "Orbis" - the "Urbs", which expresses "Orbis", the earth, where he ended his race at the service of the Gospel with martyrdom.

So it is that the See of Rome, which had received the greatest of honours, also has the honour that Christ entrusted to Peter of being at the service of all the particular Churches for the edification and unity of the entire People of God.

The See of Rome, after St Peter's travels, thus came to be recognized as the See of the Successor of Peter, and its Bishop's "cathedra" represented the mission entrusted to him by Christ to tend his entire flock.

This is testified by the most ancient Fathers of the Church, such as, for example, St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, but who came from Asia Minor, who in his treatise Adversus Haereses, describes the Church of Rome as the "greatest and most ancient, known by all... founded and established in Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul"; and he added: "The universal Church, that is, the faithful everywhere, must be in agreement with this Church because of her outstanding superiority" (III, 3, 2-3).

Tertullian, a little later, said for his part: "How blessed is the Church of Rome, on which the Apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood!" (De Praescriptione Hereticorum, 36).
Consequently, the Chair of the Bishop of Rome represents not only his service to the Roman community but also his mission as guide of the entire People of God.

Celebrating the "Chair" of Peter, therefore, as we are doing today, means attributing a strong spiritual significance to it and recognizing it as a privileged sign of the love of God, the eternal Good Shepherd, who wanted to gather his whole Church and lead her on the path of salvation.

Among the numerous testimonies of the Fathers, I would like to quote St Jerome's. It is an extract from one of his letters, addressed to the Bishop of Rome. It is especially interesting precisely because it makes an explicit reference to the "Chair" of Peter, presenting it as a safe harbour of truth and peace.

This is what Jerome wrote: "I decided to consult the Chair of Peter, where that faith is found exalted by the lips of an Apostle; I now come to ask for nourishment for my soul there, where once I received the garment of Christ. I follow no leader save Christ, so I enter into communion with your beatitude, that is, with the Chair of Peter, for this I know is the rock upon which the Church is built" (cf. Le lettere I, 15, 1-2).

Dear brothers and sisters, in the apse of St Peter's Basilica, as you know, is the monument to the Chair of the Apostle, a mature work of Bernini. It is in the form of a great bronze throne supported by the statues of four Doctors of the Church: two from the West, St Augustine and St Ambrose, and two from the East: St John Chrysostom and St Athanasius.

I invite you to pause before this evocative work which today can be admired, decorated with myriads of candles, and to say a special prayer for the ministry that God has entrusted to me. Raise your eyes to the alabaster glass window located directly above the Chair and call upon the Holy Spirit, so that with his enlightenment and power, he will always sustain my daily service to the entire Church. For this, as for your devoted attention, I thank you from my heart.

N.B. Altar of the Chair Before Virgilio Cardinal Noè Demolition

P.S. SAINT PETER'S CHAIR AT ANTIOCH(ca. 36-43)

That Saint Peter, before he went to Rome, founded the see of Antioch is attested by many Saints of the earliest times, including Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint Clement, Pope. It was just that the Prince of the Apostles should take under his particular care and surveillance this city, which was then the capital of the East, and where the faith so early took such deep roots as to give birth there to the name of Christians. There his voice could be heard by representatives of the three largest nations of antiquity - the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Latins. Saint Chrysostom says that Saint Peter was there for a long period; Saint Gregory the Great, that he was seven years Bishop of Antioch. He did not reside there at all times, but governed its apostolic activity with the wisdom his mandate assured.

If as tradition affirms, he was twenty-five years in Rome, the date of his establishment at Antioch must be within three years after Our Saviour's Ascension, for he would have gone to Rome in the second year of Claudius. He no doubt left Jerusalem when the persecution which followed Saint Steven's martyrdom broke out (Acts 8:1), and remained in Antioch until he escaped miraculously from prison and from the hands of Herod Agrippa, while in Jerusalem in 43 at the time of the Passover. (Acts 12) Knowing he would be pursued to Antioch, his well-known center of activity, he went to Rome.

In the first ages it was customary, especially in the East, for every Christian to observe the anniversary of his Baptism. On that day each one renewed his baptismal vows and gave thanks to God for his heavenly adoption. That memorable day they regarded as their spiritual birthday. The bishops similarly kept the anniversary of their consecration, as appears from four sermons of Saint Leo the Great on the anniversary of his accession to the pontifical dignity. These commemorations were frequently continued by the people after their bishops' decease, out of respect for their memory. The feast of the Chair of Saint Peter was instituted from very early times. Saint Leo says we should celebrate the Chair of Saint Peter with no less joy than the day of his martyrdom, for as in the latter he was exalted to a throne of glory in heaven, by the former he was installed Head of the Church on earth.

What You Need to Know about Planned Parenthood

Lila Rose, Live Action

Second Council of Nicaea--The Answer to Desacralization Crisis

"The Second Council of Nicaea,...amounted to a decisive victory over the Platonic misunderstanding of Christianity--a victory that has received too little attention in the West--by maintaining the paradox of a spiritualization that is incarnation. The Council, which in its affirmation of the image sees the inner consistency of the Incarnation and which in the East is still celebrated on the Feast of Orthodoxy as the watershed between pre-Christian and Christian Hellenism--this Council is the ready-made answer to the problem of desacralization, which arose in the West in the sixteenth century and by now in the twentieth has assumed its most acute form. Iconoclasm is not the breakthrough from the Old Testament into the New but, rather, the destruction of the Incarnation and thus a relapse into the Law, which could permit no images because the Image had not yet appeared."

Joseph Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching, San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005, 237.

Technology's Blindspot: the Human Soul, Grace

"The supremacy of technology tends to prevent people from recognizing anything that cannot be explained in terms of matter alone. Yet everyone experiences the many immaterial and spiritual dimensions of life. Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us. We should never cease to marvel at these things. In all knowledge and in every act of love the human soul experiences something 'over and above,' which seems very much like a gift that we receive, or a height to which we are raised." 77

Pope Benedict indicates in this text the vastness of the invisible reality of knowledge and of love: gift, gratitude, Grace. Technology is a mere participation, a mere dependence, in this vast world of beneficiaries, inhabiting, exploring and mining myriad castles of marvelous truth.

And so, authentic human development cannot be simply material.

"The development of individuals and peoples is...located on a height, if we consider the spiritual dimension,...rising above a materialistic vision of human events, capable of glimpsing in development the 'beyond' that technology cannot give." 77

"Development must include not just material growth but also spiritual growth, since the human person is a 'unity of body and soul,' (Gaudium et Spes, 14) born of God's creative love and destined for eternal life. The human being develops when he grows in the spirit, when his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters into dialogue with himself and his Creator. When he is far away from God, man is unsettled and ill at ease...The emptiness in which the soul feels abandoned, despite the availability of countless therapies for body and psyche, leads to suffering." 76

Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, 2009 (His Holiness' response to the world-wide financial crisis)

Theology is Secondary, Revelation is Primary

"Theology is not something primary but something secondary. The primary thing, which is presupposed by theology, is a body of traditional pronouncements which are believed to have been revealed, not to have come into being through human interpretation of reality, but, as Plato puts it, to 'have come down from a divine source.'

"Now theology is the human endeavor to interpret this body of tradition out of itself, by ordering it and weighing it." 29

"A philosophizing which refuses to be methodologically open toward theology and to reach an understanding with it is quite simply unphilosophical." 19

Joseph Pieper, The End of Time: A Meditation on the Philosophy of History, San Fransisco: Ignatius, 1999

Hymn and Antiphon to Accompany Liturgical Hours

Horae Sanctae Crucis

At matins bound, at Prime reviled
Condemned to death at Terce,
Nailed to the Cross at Sext.
At None His blessed Side they pierced,
They take Him down at Vesper-Tide,
In the grave at Compline lay,
Who henceforth bids His Church observe
These sevenfold hours alway.

Ordinaria (Said at the beginning of each hour)

V. Per signum crucis de inimicis nostris.
R. Libera nos Deus noster.

V. Domine labia mea aperies.
R. Et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.

V. Deus in adiutorium meum intende.
R. Domine ad adiuvandum me festina.

V. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.
R. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.

Ad Matutinum

Patris sapientia, veritas divina,
Deus homo captus est hora matutina:
A notis discipulis cito derelictus:
A Iudaeis traditus, venditus, et afflictus.

Ant: O crux venerabilis, quae salutem attulisti miseris, quibus te efferam praeconiis: quoniam vitam nobis caelitum praeparasti.

Ad Primam
Hora prima Dominum ducunt ad Pilatum,
A falsis testibus multum accusatum,
Colaphis percutiunt manibus ligatum,
Vultum Dei conspuunt lumen caeli gratum.

Ant: O crucis victoria, et admirabile signum, in caelesti curia fac nos captare triumphum.

Ad Tertiam
Crucifige clamitant hora tertiarum:
Illusus induitur veste purpurarum:
Caput eius pungitur corona spinarum.
Crucem portat humeris ad locum poenarum.

Ant: Funestae mortis damnatur supplicium, dum Christus in cruce nostra destruxit vincula criminum.

Ad Sextam

Hora sexta Iesus est cruci conclavatus,
Et est cum latronibus pendens deputatus:
Prae tormentis sitiens felle saturatus,
Agnus crimen diluens sic ludificatus.

Ant: Per lignum servi facti sumus, et per sanctam crucem liberati sumus: fructus arboris seduxit nos, filius Dei redemit nos.

Ad Nonam

Hora nona Dominus Iesus expiravit:
Eli clamans spiritum patri commendavit:
Latus eius lancea miles perforavit.
Terra tunc contremuit, et sol obscuravit.

Ant: O magnum pietatis opus: mors mortua tunc est, in ligno quando mortua vita fuit.

Ad Vesperas

De cruce deponitur hora vespertina.
Fortitudo latuit in mente divina.
Talem mortem subiit vitae medicina:
Heu corona gloriae iacuit supina.

Ant: O crux benedicta, quae sola fuisti digna portare talentum mundi: dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulcia ferens pondera: super omnia ligna cedrorum, tu sola excelsior: in qua mundi salus pependit, in qua Christus triumphavit, et mors mortem superavit in aeternum.

Ad Completorium

Hora completorii datur sepulturae
Corpus Christi nobile, spes vitae futurae
Conditur aromate: complentur scripturae:
Iugi fit memoriae mors haec mihi curae.

Ant: Salvator mundi salva nos, qui per crucem et sanguinem tuum redemisti nos, auxiliare nobis, te deprecamur Deus noster.

V. Adoramus te Christe, et benedicimus tibi.
R. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

Oremus: Domine Iesu Christe fili Dei vivi, pone passionem, crucem, et mortem tuam inter iudicium tuum et animam meam, nunc, et in hora mortis meae: et mihi largiri digneris gratiam et misericordiam: vivis et defunctis requiem et veniam: Ecclesiae tuae pacem et concordiam, et nobis peccatoribus vitam et gloriam sempiternam. Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo patre in unitate spiritus sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen.

Commendatio (Said at the end of each hour)

Has horas canonicas cum devotione,
Tibi Christe recolo pia ratione:
Ut qui pro me passus es amoris ardore,
Sis mihi solatium, mortis in agone. Amen.

Pope Francis Confirms the Upcoming Canonization of Blessed Pope Paul VI. Two Popes Canonized, Two on the Way, Two Living Popes On Standby!

June 27, 1977 Consistory, Paul VI creates Joseph Ratzinger Cardinal

Español (Source)

Last Thursday, during a gathering with the Roman clergy, Pope Francis confirmed the recent rumors of the canonization of Pope Paul VI this year, beatified by him on October 19, 2014. 

Click for the 25 second remarks:

"There are already two Bishop of Rome Saints.

"Paul VI will be made a Saint this year. Two Saints, one with the cause of beatification underway, John Paul I; the cause is open.

"And two, Benedict and I, on the waiting list. Pray for us!"

Coincidentally, July 25, 2018 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the prophetic Paul VI encyclical Humanae Vitae on the two inseparable meanings of the marital/procreative act and on the violence which is done to love and to life by divorcing those two inhering meanings from each other.

Papal Splendor: Two Centuries of Pope Saints!

The Logic of the Ancient Lenten Fast, Etc.

Durandus on the Liturgical Customs of Lent
GREGORY DIPIPPO

The following selections are taken from William Durandus’ important liturgical commentary, the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, book 6, chapter 27, which treats specifically of Ash Wednesday, but also of Lent in general. Some of the elisions here are made for the sake of a more succinct presentation of his thought; several of them are made in places where he directs the reader to matters he has discussed elsewhere in the work. The translation is my own.

After Quinquagesima follows Quadragesima, (“fortieth”, the Latin word for Lent), which is the spiritual number of penance, in which the Church fasts, and repents of its sins; for by the penance which is accomplished in Lent, we arrive at the fifty days (of Easter), which is to say, the jubilee year, which symbolizes the forgiveness of sins. Lent (Quadragesima) begins on the following Sunday, on which (the Introit) Invocavit me is sung but the fast begins on Wednesday, as will be mentioned below.

The Blessed Peter first instituted the fast of Lent before Easter. Nor is the fact that we are in abstinence for 46 days from the beginning of the fast to Easter without symbolic meaning. For after the Babylonian captivity, the temple of the Lord was built in 46 years; whence we also after the captivity of Babylon, that is, of the confusion caused by the vices, for 46 days build ourselves as a temple to God through abstinence and good works. … (“Babylon” is the Greek form of the Hebrew word “Babel”, which means “confusion”, the site of the confusion of tongues in Genesis 11. Durandus refers the forty-six years of the building of the temple, as stated in John 2, 20, to the post-exilic rebuilding in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah at the end of the 6th century B.C.; historically, the Jews speaking to Christ in the Gospel were referring to the reconstruction under Herod the Great in the first century B.C.)

Again, the fasts were instituted, because in the Old Law, it was commanded to render tithes and first-fruits from all goods to God; wherefore, we must also do the same in regard to ourselves, that is, from our body, our mind and our time. … For indeed, we offer tithes and first-fruits to God when we do good. In Lent a tithe of days is paid, according to Gregory (the Great, hom. 16 in evang., cited by Gratian de consecr. dist. 5, 16). From the first Sunday of Lent until Easter six weeks are numbered, which make 42 days; from these, the six Sundays are removed from the fast, and there remain 36 days of abstinence, which are almost a tenth of the year. Therefore, in order that the number of forty day in which Christ fasted may be fulfilled, four days are recovered in the previous week… To the thirty-six days which are the tithe, four are added … the first of which is a day of sanctification and cleansing, for then do we purify the soul and body by sprinkling ashes on our heads. …

But we in Provence (Durandus was bishop of Mende in the Occitan region of France) begin the Lenten fast on the Monday of the preceding week (i.e. the day after Quinquagesima), and thus we fast two days more than the other nations. This is not only for honesty’s sake, that is, so that being thus purified in these two days, we may begin the holy fast on Wednesday, but also because Lent ends on the great Thursday of the (Lord’s) Supper… Therefore, on the last two days (i.e. Good Friday and Holy Saturday), we fast, not because it is Lent, but because … of the holiness of those days. …

But since in Lent we are invited (to go) through Christ’s fast … and He began His fast immediately after the Baptism, which is (commemorated on) Epiphany, the question arises as to why we begin the fast at this time, and not at the same time in which He fasted, especially since His deeds should be our instruction. There are four reasons for this.

The first is that in Lent we represent the people of Israel, who were in the desert for forty years, and immediately after celebrated the Passover.

The second is that in the spring, men are naturally moved to desire (libido), and fasting was instituted in this period to restrain it.

The third is that the Resurrection is joined with Christ’s Passion; therefore, it was reasonable that our affliction should be joined with the Passion of the Savior. For since He suffered for us, we must suffer along with Him, so that we may finally reign with Him; and after the Passion, the Resurrection follows immediately, according to the Apostle’s word, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” (2 Tim. 2, 12) Likewise, a sick man is more afflicted (by his illness) when he is getting healthier.

The fourth reason is that just as the children of Israel afflicted themselves before they ate the lamb, and ate wild, that is, bitter lettuce, (Exodus 12, 8, from the Epistle of the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday) so also we, through the bitterness of penance, must first be afflicted, so that immediately after we may worthily eat the Lamb of life, that is, the body of Christ, and so mystically receive the Paschal sacraments.

Now in the Lenten Masses, “Bow (humiliare) your heads to God” is often said, since in that period the devil attacks us even more; for which reason, we must humbly pray God, and humble ourselves before him, …

The prayer over the people (at the end of the Lenten ferial Masses) is also said after “Bow (your) heads”, because of the holiness of the season, and to indicate that in this life, prayer must be offered for us, that in the future we may merit to hear, “Come, ye blessed of my Father etc. (Matthew 25, 34, from the Gospel of the first Monday of Lent.) This prayer takes the place of Holy Communion. For once upon a time, all communicated and the deacon would invite those who were to receive communion to kneel; but now, because many receive the Lord’s body unworthily, in place of Communion we use a prayer, and the deacon fulfills his office as before, saying “Bow your heads to God”, because whosoever humbleth himself shall be exalted (Matthew 23, 12, from the Gospel of the second Tuesday of Lent), and whoever is blessed by good deeds in this life, will be deputed to eternal blessing afterwards. In this prayer, therefore, the priest commends the soldiers of Christ to the fight, to combat the ancient enemy and snares of the enemies, and so he first arms them through his minister (the deacon) with the weapons of humility, saying “Bow your heads to God”. And thus at last, when they have bowed their heads, he pours the protection of his blessing upon them, strengthening them, as it were …

(In many medieval Uses, “Oremus. Flectamus genua. Levate” were said before the Collect of every ferial Mass in Lent, not just on the Ember Days as in the Roman Use. This custom is still kept by the Dominicans, who say it in addition to, not in place of, “Dominus vobiscum etc.”) At the first Collect we kneel in accord with the struggle of the present life, representing the affliction of labor and continence; but at the last prayer, which is for thanksgiving, we bow the head, by which is designated humility of the mind, because in the life eternal, every labor will be excluded, but humility will always remain. …

Now in these days the Church, being set in the great struggle of Lent, frequently repeats the Psalm "He that dwelleth", because this psalm tells those who are in a struggle to place their hope in the Lord, and seek all their help from him. (This is Psalm 90, from which are taken all the propers of the Mass of the First Sunday, and the versicles and short responsories of the Office.) …

Also, from Ash Wednesday until Palm Sunday the preface of the fast is said every day, and in some places, even on Sunday. But on Palm Sunday and the following days is said the Preface of the Passion. But it seems to be incongruous that the preface of the fast should be sung on Sundays, since one does not fast on those days, and therefore some people say the daily preface on those Sundays. But even though they are not counted as fast days, they are kept as a fast in the kind of food that is eaten, which is like that of the other days.

(Concerning the anticipation of Vespers on ferial days) … it must be noted that the season of Lent is a time of mourning and penance; but while the penitents are converted to Christ, they pass from darkness to light. Now the evening, because of the failing of the light and the (ensuing) darkness, signifies imperfection. Therefore, because the penitents are pressing forward, not towards imperfection and failure, but rather towards perfection and the light of truth, in regard to Vespers the aforementioned time of light is appropriately anticipated, according to a decree of the Council of Chalon. (Cited by Gratian, de consecr., dist. 1, 50) Vespers are thus said immediately after Mass, though they are otherwise wont to be said close to the night-time.

Monitio Quadragesimalis

Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.

Homo, humus.

Fama, fumus.
Finis, cinis.

The Proper Hermeneutic Must Agree With Perennial Truth

Here is the historic discourse of Benedict XVI from 22 December 2005 to the Roman curia, the first year of his pontificate.

He places Vatican II in its proper context of the perennial dialogue between faith and reason. A dynamic fidelity is sought and needed to respond to the demands of our time, as required in every time and circumstance.

The proper "hermeneutic" is the one that does not break fidelity. The only proper hermeneutic is a faithful hermeneutic. There was a hermeneutic of discontinuity which was wrong and harmful, and the hermeneutic of reform in continuity with the Church before and after which is one and the same: one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

Deleting Faith in God => Moral Relativism => Tyranny

"The world comes from reason [Logos] and this reason is a Person, is Love--this is what our biblical faith tells us about God. Reason can speak about God, it must speak about God, or else it cuts itself short. Included in this is the concept of creation.

"The world is not just maya, appearance, which we must ultimately leave behind. It is not merely the endless wheel of sufferings, from which we must try to escape. It is something positive. It is good, despite all the evil in it and despite all the sorrow, and it is good to live in it. God, who is the Creator and declares himself in his creation, also gives direction and measure to human action. We are living today in a crisis of moral values [Ethos], which by now is no longer merely an academic question about the ultimate foundations of ethical theories, but rather an entirely practical matter. The news is getting around that moral values cannot be grounded in something else, and the consequences of this view are working themselves out. The published works on the theme of moral values are stacked high and almost toppling over, which on the one hand indicates the urgency of the question, but on the other hand also suggests the prevailing perplexity. Kolakowski, in his line of thinking, has very emphatically pointed out that deleting faith in God, however one may try to spin or turn it, ultimately deprives moral values of their grounding. If the world and man do not come from a creative intelligence, which stores within itself their measure and plots the path of human existence, then all that is left are traffic rules for human behavior, which can be discarded or maintained according to their usefulness. All that remains is the calculus of consequences--what is called teleological ethics or proportionalism.

"But who can really make a judgment beyond the consequences of the present moment? Won't a new ruling class, then, take hold of the keys of human existence and become the managers of mankind? When dealing with a calculus of consequences, the inviolability of human dignity no longer exists, because nothing is good or bad in itself anymore. The problem of moral values is back on the table again, and it is an item of great urgency. Faith in the Logos, the Word that is in the beginning, understands moral values as responsibility, as a response to the Word, and thus gives them their intelligibility as well as their essential orientation. Connected with this also is the task of searching for a common understanding of responsibility, together with all honest, rational inquiry and with the great religious traditions. In this endeavor there is not only the intrinsic proximity of the three great monotheistic religions, but also significant lines of convergence with the another strand of Asian religiosity as we encounter in Confucianism and Taoism."

"...[H]ow little we are capable of defining God, much less fathoming him. ...God's answer to Job explains nothing, but rather sets boundaries to our mania for judging everything and being able to say the final word on a subject, and reminds us of our limitations. It admonishes us to trust the mystery of God in its incomprehensibility. Having said this, we must still emphasize the brightness of God, too, along with the darkness. Ever since the Prologue to the Gospel of John, the concept of Logos has been at the very center of our Christian faith in God. Logos signifies reason, meaning, or even 'word'--a meaning, therefore, which is Word, which is relationship, which is creative. The God who is Logos guarantees the intelligibility of the world, the intelligibility of our existence, reason's accord with God and God's accord with reason, even though his understanding infinitely surpasses ours and to us may so often appear to be darkness."

Joseph Ratzinger, "Introduction to the 2000 edition of Introduction to Christianity" in The Essential Pope Benedict XVI, eds. Thornton and Varenne, New York: HarperOne, 2008, 11-12. (With minor editing by Plinthos, comparing that text with the second edition of Introduction to Christianity, San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004 and the German edition Einführung in das Christentum, München: Zeitgeist, 2000, 23-25).

El Ayuno Cuerasmal Tradicional (1962)

Reglas que se aplican a todos los días menos los domingos y las solemnidades exentadas, que no días penitenciales.

Ayuno* todos los días desdel miércoles de ceniza hasta la medianoche del sábado de gloria: una comida completa al día, con dos comidas menores que juntas no llegan a tanto como la principal, y sin meriendas entre las comidas (excepto el agua+), con las siguientes abstinencias:

Abstinencia Completa**
     miércoles+
     viernes
     sábados

Abstinencia Parcial: se permite la carne solo en la comida principal
     lunes
     martes
     jueves

*Ayuno Estricto el miércoles de ceniza y todos los viernes: ninguna comida ni bebida, excepto a tomar una merienda ligera y rápida (por ejemplo, pan y agua) al final del día, si es necesario.+

**La abstinencia prohíbe toda carne y caldo de carne. Se permite todo tipo de pescado, huevos, productos lácteos, o sazones hechas de la grasa de los animales.

+ Indica donde Plinthos ha añadido algo a la norma.

The Traditional Lenten Fast

In light of the 1962 regulations for Lenten Penance I suggest the following Lenten Fast for traditional Catholics.
This is the Lenten fast "strongly recommended" by the Bishops of the US, "On Penance and Abstinence", 18 November 1966, paragraph 14.
These rules would apply to all days except Sundays and exempt Solemnities, which are not days of Penance.

Fasting* every day from Ash Wednesday until midnight of Holy Saturday: one full meal a day with two smaller meals that do not equal the main meal, and no snacks between meals (except water+), with abstinence as follows:

Total Abstinence**.
     Wednesdays+
      Fridays
      Saturdays

Partial Abstinence: meat permitted at the principle meal only.
     Mondays
     Tuesdays
     Thursdays

*Strict fast on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays: no food or drink, except to take a quick and light snack (e.g. bread and water) at the end of the day, if needed.+

**Abstinence forbids the eating of flesh meat and of broth made from meat, but does not exclude fish, eggs, dairy products or seasonings made from the fat of animals.

+ Indicates a norm adjusted by Plinthos.

P.S. This fast (which typically permits one decent meal each day) is demanding but not hard to do and very rewarding spiritually. It is what believers have done from the beginning of time!

Cf. Newark traditional lenten fast regulations, 1873.

Pondus meum amor meus... Confessions, Bk. XIII, Chapt. 9, 10.

Where you give yourself, that is where you are! It is the nature of man, analogous to the nature of God, Who is Gift.

Every thing goes to its proper place. Man's proper place is the same as God's: Self Donation!

"10. But was not either the Father or the Son borne over the waters? If we understand this to mean in space, as a body, then neither was the Holy Spirit; but if the incommutable super-eminence of Divinity above everything mutable, then both Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost were borne over the waters. Why, then, is this said of Your Spirit only? Why is it said of Him alone? As if He had been in place who is not in place, of whom only it is written, that He is Your gift? In Your gift we rest; there we enjoy You. Our rest is our place. Love lifts us up there, and Your good Spirit lifts our lowliness from the gates of death. In Your good pleasure lies our peace. The body by its own weight gravitates towards its own place. Weight goes not downward only, but to its own place. Fire tends upwards, a stone downwards. They are propelled by their own weights, they seek their own places. Oil poured under the water is raised above the water; water poured upon oil sinks under the oil. They are propelled by their own weights, they seek their own places. Out of order, they are restless; restored to order, they are at rest. My weight is my love; by it am I borne wherever I am borne. By Your Gift we are inflamed, and are borne upwards; we wax hot inwardly, and go forwards. We ascend Your ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of degrees; we glow inwardly with Your fire, with Your good fire, and we go, because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem; for glad was I when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. There has Your good pleasure placed us, that we may desire no other thing than to dwell there forever."
New Advent


Amore feruntur omnia.

9. 10. Numquid aut Pater aut Filius non superferebatur super aquas? Si tamquam loco sicut corpus, nec Spiritus Sanctus; si autem incommutabilis divinitatis eminentia super omne mutabile, et Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus superferebatur super aquas 41. Cur ergo tantum de spiritu tuo dictum est hoc? Cur de illo tantum dictum est quasi locus, ubi esset, qui non est locus, de quo solo dictum est, quod sit donum tuum 42? In dono tuo requiescimus: ibi te fruimur. Requies nostra locus noster. Amor illuc attollit nos et spiritus tuus bonus 43 exaltat humilitatem nostram de portis mortis 44. In bona voluntate pax nobis est 45. Corpus pondere suo nititur ad locum suum. Pondus non ad ima tantum est, sed ad locum suum. Ignis sursum tendit, deorsum lapis. Ponderibus suis aguntur, loca sua petunt. Oleum infra aquam fusum super aquam attollitur, aqua supra oleum fusa, infra oleum demergitur; ponderibus suis aguntur, loca sua petunt. Minus ordinata inquieta sunt: ordinantur et quiescunt. Pondus meum amor meus; eo feror, quocumque feror. Dono tuo accendimur et sursum ferimur; inardescimus et imus. Ascendimus ascensiones in corde 46 et cantamus canticum graduum 47. Igne tuo, igne tuo bono inardescimus et imus, quoniam sursum imus ad pacem Hierusalem, quoniam iucundatus sum in his, qui dixerunt mihi: In domum Domini ibimus 48. Ibi nos collocabit voluntas bona, ut nihil velimus aliud quam permanere illic in aeternum 49.

http://www.augustinus.it/latino/confessioni/index2.htm

41 - Gen 1, 2.
42 - Cf. Act 2, 38.
43 - Ps 142, 10.
44 - Ps 9, 14-15.
45 - Cf. Lc 2, 14.
46 - Ps 83, 6.
47 - Cf. Ps 119, 1.
48 - Ps 121, 6. 1.
49 - Ps 60, 8.

Neo-Paganism: the Problem Vatican II Failed to Correct

So, Vatican II did not achieve the good of the faithful or of the world which it boldly declared as its aim. That much is clear. We are not better off.

But, it is necessary in this regard to go back to Ratzinger's assessment of the paganism of his 1950's Catholic Bavaria: "The New Pagans and the Church". A Catholicism which simply went through the motions. It was a worldly religiosity with very little depth. He says that a great fall-out, because of the superficiality of the faith, was inevitable. It was largely a humbug Catholicism, much too identified with the world.

"In the long run, the Church cannot avoid the need to get rid of, part by part, the appearance of her identity with the world, and once again to become what she is: the community of the faithful. Actually, her missionary power can only increase through such external losses. Only when she ceases to be a cheap, foregone conclusion, only when she begins again to show herself as she really is, will she be able to reach the ear of the new pagans with her good news, since until now they have been subject to the illusion that they were not real pagans. Certainly such a withdrawal of external positions will involve a loss of valuable advantages, which doubtless exist because of the contemporary entanglement of the Church with civil society. This has to do with a process which is going to take place either with, or without, the approval of the Church, and concerning which she must take a stand (the attempt to preserve the Middle Ages is foolish and would be not only tactically, but also factually, wrong). Certainly, on the other hand, this process should not be forced in an improper manner, but it will be very important to maintain [a] spirit of prudent moderation..."

What he is saying is that for too long "the faithful" have been living a practical atheism deceiving both themselves and the world. He says that the majority of Catholics no longer practice their faith. And they actually work against the faith of the Church. They are "the new pagans."

"It is...evident that they no longer simply embrace the faith of the Church, but that they make a very subjective choice from the creed of the Church in order to shape their own world view. And there can be no doubt that most of them, from the Christian point of view, should really no longer be called believers, but that they follow, more or less, a secular philosophy. They do indeed affirm the moral responsibility of man, but it is based on, and limited by, purely rational considerations. The ethics of N. Hartmanns, K. Jaspers, and M. Heidegger, for example, defend the more or less known convictions of many morally upright men, but they are in no sense Christians.. The well-known [recently published] little book entitled, What Do You Think About Christianity? can open the eyes of anyone, who has allowed himself to be deceived by the Christian façade of our contemporary public image, to the realization of how far and wide such purely rational and irreligious morality has spread. Therefore, the modern man today, when he meets someone else anywhere, can assume with some certainty that he has a baptismal certificate, but not that he has a Christian frame of mind. Therefore, he must presume as the normal state of affairs the lack of faith of his neighbor."

Thus the Church's structure had changed over the centuries from a Church of the converted to a mere club.
And the consciousness of the still-believing Christians had changed accordingly into a general indifferentism regarding the essential need of the Church for salvation. That it is basically the same no matter what religion you are. That God and religion are really unimportant, even though everyone gave lip service to both.

That was the problem of the 1950's which Vatican II addressed and tried to answer, but, rather than fixing it, made it much worse. Now the paganism is wide-open and obvious on all sides.

It's not enough to say that Vatican II failed. The modern Church is failing in her primary mission of salvation and she has been doing so for more than the half a century since Vatican II.

1962 Guidelines for Traditional Lenten Penance, Etc.

Here are the traditional rules of fast and abstinence as observed per the 1962 liturgical calendar and outlined in Canons 1250-1254 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law.

Who was bound to observe these laws?

The law of abstinence bound all Catholics, beginning on the day after their 7th birthday.

The law of fasting bound all Catholics, beginning on the day after their 21st birthday and ending at the midnight which completed their 59th birthday. [Note: The USA's particular law has lowered the obligatory fasting age to 18.]

What was forbidden and allowed to be eaten?

The law of abstinence forbade the eating of flesh meat and of broth made of meat, but did not exclude the use of eggs, dairy products, or seasonings made from the fat of animals.

The law of fasting prescribed that only one full meal a day was taken with two smaller meals that did not equal the main one.

As to the kind of food and the amount that might be taken, the approved customs of the place were to be observed. It was not forbidden to eat both flesh meat and fish at the same meal, nor to interchange the midday and evening meals.

In the Universal Church

Abstinence was obligatory on all Fridays, except on Holy Days of Obligation outside of Lent.

Fasting and complete abstinence were obligatory on the following days:

Ash Wednesday
Fridays and Saturdays in Lent
Good Friday
Holy Saturday (until midnight)
Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday)
Vigil of Pentecost
Vigil of Christmas

[NB: both the Vigils of the Immaculate Conception and All Saints were omitted from the 1962 calendar]

Partial abstinence

Fasting and partial abstinence were obligatory on all other weekdays of Lent (i.e., Monday through Thursday—Friday was always complete abstinence); this meant that meat could be eaten at the principal meal on these days.

Some further clarifications to universal laws

There are few more distinctions to take into account fasting and abstaining when a usual fast day was in concurrence with a Sunday (always a non-fast day):

Sundays throughout the year and Holy Days of Obligation outside of Lent cancelled the fasting and/or abstinence of any penitential day which coincided.

If a fast-day Vigil fell on Sunday, the fasting and abstinence associated with the Vigil were not anticipated on the Saturday, but dropped altogether that year.

Particular rules observed in the USA

On January 28, 1949, the United States bishops issued a statement modifying the regulations of fasting and abstinence in America (thus differing slightly from the universal laws) after receiving a ruling from the Sacred Congregation of the Council.

Fasting and partial abstinence was obligatory on the following days:

Ember Wednesdays and Saturdays
Vigil of Pentecost
all other weekdays of Lent including Saturdays

Liquids, including milk and fruit juices, might be taken at any time on a day of fast, but “other works of charity, piety, and prayer for the pope should be substituted” to compensate for this relaxation.

In 1931, Pope Pius XII gave an indult to the American bishops allowing them to dispense with abstinence on any penitential day that was a civic holiday and on the Friday that followed Thanksgiving Day. (Canon Law Digest, vol. 1.)

The United States bishops had the faculties to dispense the faithful from the obligation to fast and abstain on penitential days that fell on civic holidays.


Holy Days of Obligation in the USA

A Holy Day of Obligation is a day on which we are bound to hear Mass and to abstain from servile works. In the USA, the Holy Days of Obligation are:

All Sundays
Octave Day of the Nativity ( January 1)
Ascension Day
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15)
Feast of All Saints (November 1)
Immaculate Conception (December 8)
Christmas Day (December 25)

Cf. Ember Days

Contraception's Constant Separation Causes a New Worldview

[The] key concepts [of today's programmatic reorientation of life] present themselves in the words “conscience” and “freedom,” which are supposed to confer the aura of morality upon changed norms of behavior that at first glance would be plainly labelled as a surrender of moral integrity, the simplifications of a lax conscience.

No longer is conscience understood as that knowledge which derives from a higher form of knowing. It is instead the individual’s self-determination which may not be directed by someone else, a determination by which each person decides for himself what is moral in a given situation.

The concept “norm”—or what is even worse, the moral law itself—takes on negative shades of dark intensity: an external rule may supply models for direction but it can in no case serve as the ultimate arbiter of one’s obligation.

Where such thinking holds sway, the relationship of man to his body necessarily changes too. This change is described as a liberation, when compared to the relationship obtaining until now, like an opening up to a freedom long unknown. The body then comes to be considered as a possession which a person can make use of in whatever way seems to him most helpful in attaining “quality of life.” The body is something that one has and that one uses. No longer does man expect to receive a message from his bodiliness as to who he is and what he should do, but definitely, on the basis of his reasonable deliberations and with complete independence, he expects to do with it as he wishes. In consequence, there is indeed no difference whether the body be of the masculine or the feminine sex, the body no longer expresses being at all, on the contrary, it has become a piece of property.

It may be that man’s temptation has always lain in the direction of such control and the exploitation of goods. At its roots, however, this way of thinking first became an actual possibility through the fundamental separation—not a theoretical but a practical and constantly practiced separation—of sexuality and procreation. This separation was introduced with the pill and has been brought to its culmination by genetic engineers so that man can now “make” human beings in the laboratory. The material for doing this has to be procured by actions deliberately carried out for the sake of the planned results which no longer involve interpersonal human bonds and decisions in any way. Indeed, where this kind of thinking has been completely adopted, the difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality as well as that between sexual relations within or outside marriage have become unimportant.

Likewise divested of every metaphysical symbolism is the distinction between man and woman, which is to be regarded as the product of reinforced role expectations.

Christian Civilization Urgently Needs to Revive and Redevelop the Doctrines of Creation, Metaphysics and Eschatology

N.B. This year is the golden jubilee of the prophetic Humanae Vitae.

The Irreverence of Contraception: Connection Between Contraception and Adultery, Divorce, Abortion, and...Suicide!

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

temet nosce

Plato, Charmides
[164d (Gk)]...I would almost say that this very thing, self-knowledge, is temperance, and I am at one with him who put up the inscription of those words at Delphi. For the purpose of that inscription on the temple, as it seems to me, is to serve as the god's salutation to those who enter it, instead of [164e](Gk) “Hail!”—this is a wrong form of greeting, and they should rather exhort one another with the words, “Be temperate!” And thus the god addresses those who are entering his temple in a mode which differs from that of men; such was the intention of the dedicator of the inscription in putting it up, I believe; and that he says to each man who enters, in reality, “Be temperate !” But he says it in a rather riddling fashion, as a prophet would; for “Know thyself!” and “Be temperate!” are the same, as [165a (Gk)] the inscription1 and I declare, though one is likely enough to think them different—an error into which I consider the dedicators of the later inscriptions fell when they put up “Nothing overmuch”2 and “A pledge, and thereupon perdition.”3 For they supposed that “Know thyself!” was a piece of advice, and not the god's salutation of those who were entering; and so, in order that their dedications too might equally give pieces of useful advice, they wrote these words and dedicated them.

Ave Regina Coelorum

Truth and truths

Please consider this definition of truth as found in the glossary of my Italian volume of Thomas' commentary on De Trinitate of Boethius.

It seems to me that the key distinction here is that between primary and essential truth (truth as known by God, viz. ontological) and secondary and accidental truth ("truths" as known by man, viz., intellectual and moral). So that metaphysics would be the intersection between the ontological (primary and proper) truth and man's (secondary and proper) apprehension thereof? And human "scientific" truths would be the human (secondary and proper) apprehension of mutable (secondary and improper) truths in things, which are also known by God in their changing circumstance?

"Truth is adequation of the thing and the intellect. (cf. De verit., q.1, a. 2). Truth is found first in the intellect, secondarily in things (cf. ibid, a. 2). And it is found only in the intellect which judges things through the composition of subject and predicate when it affirms, and by the separation of the predicate from the subject when it denies (cf. ibid, a. 3). That exists first and properly in the divine intellect, properly and secondarily in the human intellect, secondarily and improperly in things (cf. ibid, q. 4).

"It exists first in the divine intellect, because all other truths which exist in human intellects and in things are in conformity with the truth which exists in the divine intellect (cf. ibid).

"It exists properly in the divine and human intellect, because formal truth (i.e., in its essence) exists solely in the intellect, while in things it exists materially (cf. ibid.).

"The truth which exists in the human intellect is accidental regarding things, because things are true not by the rapport with the human intellect (cf. ibid.).

"The truth existing in the divine intellect is the cause of the truth existing in things; the latter is the cause of the truth existing in the human intellect (cf. ibid.). But the truth existing in the products of man is caused by the truth existing in the practical intellect of man (cf. ibid., a. 2). The truth which exists in things and in the human intellect originates in time and according to time. Neither the truth of things nor that of the human intellect nor that of the enunciations, in which the human intellect manifests the truth which it knows, are eternal (cf. ibid,. a. 5). Man's truth is not immutable. Because the human intellect should adequate to things, every time that a thing changes the adequation of the intellect to it must also change (cf. ibid., a. 6). If the thing changes and the human intellect does not change its judgement on the thing, there is falsity in that (cf. ibid.). Only the truth which exists in the divine intellect is eternal and immutable (cf. I Sent., d. 19, q. 5, a. 3). The truth which exists in our intellect is not eternal, but originates in time, on account of the fact that our intellect is not eternal ( cf. Summa, theol., I, q. 16, a. 7, ad. 4). If everything were annihilated, only the divine truth would remain (cf. De verit., q. 1, a. 4, ad 3).

"Truth, if considered in the proper sense, is predicated in an essential way of God, if understood in a metaphorical sense as likeness and imitation, it is predicated in a personal sense of the second person of the Trinity, i.e. of the Son, insofar as the Son is the perfect image and likeness of the Father (cf., ibid, a. 7).

"Truth exists also in sensation, but sensation does not have consciousness of that (cf. ibid., a. 8). No thing is false in itself, because every thing is adequated by nature to the divine intellect, to which it relates in an essential way. Every thing continues to be that which it is, even if the human intellect should think of it differently from that which it is, because every thing relates to the human intellect in an accidental way (cf. ibid., a 10). A thing can be false only in rapport with the human intellect, when it manifests qualities of a corresponding nature different from that which it possesses (cf. ibid.). Falsity cannot exist in the senses because they signal to the intellect only the way according to which they are mechanically impressed by things. After all, since truth exists in the judgment, the false cannot be in the senses, since in them there is no judgment (cf. ibid, a. 11)."

Tommaso d'Aquino, Sulla verità, Milano: Bompiani, 2005, 2273-2274. (Plinthos translation)

Sexagesima Epistle: Better to Suffer for God Than for Men

Brethren: You gladly put up with fools, because you are wise yourselves! For you suffer it if a man enslaves you, if a man devours you, if a man takes from you, if a man is arrogant, if a man slaps your face!
2 Cor. 11, 19-20