Litany of Loreto, Newest Titles, Mater Immaculata

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Loreto.

The Litany of Loreto is used to honor Mary, the Mother of God. The Litany recalls Mary's unique role in our salvation history as the mother of our Savior and invokes various titles for her as a way of honoring her and reminding us of the role she has played. The Litany owes many of its praises to the Greek Akathist Hymn, which was first translated into Latin in Venice around the year 800. The other titles and praises addressed to Mary are found extensively in the writings of the early Church Fathers of the first six centuries.

Over time a number of titles for our Lady were removed and added to the Litany. Originally the Litany had fifteen additional titles, such as Our Lady of Humility, Mother of Mercy, Temple of the Spirit, Gate of Redemption, and Queen of Disciples. Recent history has seen the addition of five titles. The last four titles of the Litany which refer to the the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, the Rosary and Mary as the Queen of Peace are of recent origin. Mother of the Church, was added by John Paul II. The last three titles to be added was done on June 20, 2020 by Pope Francis; Mother of mercy, Mother of hope, and Comfort of migrants.

Most likely the Litany was composed in or around Paris between the years 1150 and 1200. It gets its name from the Italian shrine (Loreto) where it was adopted in 1558. Pope Sixtus V approved its use in public worship in 1587. The Litany is used especially during May services, the month traditionally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is also used at Benediction and some congregations use it in the Divine Office. The Litany is approved for public use and carries a partial indulgence.

Kyrie, eleison.
R. Christe, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us.
R. Christ, have mercy on us.
Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, audi nos.
R. Christe, exaudi nos. Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
R. Christ, graciously hear us.
Pater de caelis, Deus,
R. miserere nobis. God the Father of heaven,
R. have mercy on us.
Fili, Redemptor mundi, Deus,
R. miserere nobis. God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
R. have mercy on us.
Spiritus Sancte Deus,
R. miserere nobis. God the Holy Spirit,
R. have mercy on us.
Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus,
R. miserere nobis. Holy Trinity, one God,
R. have mercy on us.
Sancta Maria,
R. ora pro nobis. Holy Mary,
R. pray for us.
Sancta Dei Genetrix,
R. ora pro nobis. Holy Mother of God,
R. pray for us.
Sancta Virgo virginum,
R. ora pro nobis. Holy Virgin of virgins,
R. pray for us.
Mater Christi,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of Christ,
R. pray for us.
Mater Ecclesiae,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of the Church,
R. pray for us.
Mater Misericordiae,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of mercy,
R. pray for us.
Mater Divinae gratiae,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of divine grace,
R. pray for us.
Mater spei,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of hope,
R. pray for us.
Mater purissima,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother most pure,
R. pray for us.
Mater castissima,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother most chaste,
R. pray for us.
Mater inviolata,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother inviolate,
R. pray for us.
Mater immaculata,

R. ora pro nobis. Mother immaculate,

R. pray for us.

Mater intemerata,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother undefiled,
R. pray for us.
Mater amabilis,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother most amiable,
R. pray for us.
Mater admirabilis,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother most admirable,
R. pray for us.
Mater boni Consilii,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of good counsel,
R. pray for us.
Mater Creatoris,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of our Creator,
R. pray for us.
Mater Salvatoris,
R. ora pro nobis. Mother of our Savior,
R. pray for us.
Virgo prudentissima,
R. ora pro nobis. Virgin most prudent,
R. pray for us.
Virgo veneranda,
R. ora pro nobis. Virgin most venerable,
R. pray for us.
Virgo praedicanda,
R. ora pro nobis. Virgin most renowned,
R. pray for us.
Virgo potens,
R. ora pro nobis. Virgin most powerful,
R. pray for us.
Virgo clemens,
R. ora pro nobis. Virgin most merciful,
R. pray for us.
Virgo fidelis,
R. ora pro nobis. Virgin most faithful,
R. pray for us.
Speculum iustitiae,
R. ora pro nobis. Mirror of justice,
R. pray for us.
Sedes sapientiae,
R. ora pro nobis. Seat of wisdom,
R. pray for us.
Causa nostrae laetitiae,
R. ora pro nobis. Cause of our joy,
R. pray for us.
Vas spirituale,
R. ora pro nobis. Spiritual vessel,
R. pray for us.
Vas honorabile,
R. ora pro nobis. Vessel of honor,
R. pray for us.
Vas insigne devotionis,
R. ora pro nobis. Singular vessel of devotion,
R. pray for us.
Rosa mystica,
R. ora pro nobis. Mystical rose,
R. pray for us.
Turris Davidica,
R. ora pro nobis. Tower of David,
R. pray for us.
Turris eburnea,
R. ora pro nobis. Tower of ivory,
R. pray for us.
Domus aurea,
R. ora pro nobis. House of gold,
R. pray for us.
Foederis arca,
R. ora pro nobis. Ark of the covenant,
R. pray for us.
Ianua caeli,
R. ora pro nobis. Gate of heaven,
R. pray for us.
Stella matutina,
R. ora pro nobis. Morning star,
R. pray for us.
Salus infirmorum,
R. ora pro nobis. Health of the sick,
R. pray for us.
Refugium peccatorum,
R. ora pro nobis. Refuge of sinners,
R. pray for us.
Solacium migrantium,
R. ora pro nobis. Comfort of migrants,
R. pray for us.
Consolatrix afflictorum,
R. ora pro nobis. Comforter of the afflicted,
R. pray for us.
Auxilium Christianorum,
R. ora pro nobis. Help of Christians,
R. pray for us.
Regina Angelorum,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Angels,
R. pray for us.
Regina Patriarcharum,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Patriarchs,
R. pray for us.
Regina Prophetarum,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Prophets,
R. pray for us.
Regina Apostolorum,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Apostles,
R. pray for us.
Regina Martyrum,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Martyrs,
R. pray for us.
Regina Confessorum,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Confessors,
R. pray for us.
Regina Virginum,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Virgins,
R. pray for us.
Regina Sanctorum omnium,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of all Saints,
R. pray for us.
Regina sine labe originali concepta,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen conceived without original sin,
R. pray for us.
Regina in caelum assumpta,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen assumed into heaven,
R. pray for us.
Regina Sacratissimi Rosarii,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of the most holy Rosary,
R. pray for us.
Regina familiae,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of the family,
R. pray for us.
Regina pacis,
R. ora pro nobis. Queen of Peace,
R. pray for us.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
R. parce nobis, Domine. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
R. spare us, O Lord.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
R. exaudi nos, Domine. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
R. graciously hear us, O Lord.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
R. miserere nobis. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
R. have mercy on us.
V. Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genetrix,
R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi. V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Oremus
Concede nos famulos tuos, quaesumus, Domine Deus, perpetua mentis et corporis sanitate gaudere: et gloriosa beatae Mariae semper Virginis intercessione, a praesenti liberari tristitia, et aeterna perfrui laetitia. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.
R. Amen. Let us pray
Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord God, that we Thy servants, may enjoy lasting health of mind and body, and by the glorious intercession of the Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, be delivered from present sorrow and enter into the joy of eternal happiness. Through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.
Tempore Adventus: Advent Season
V. Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae,
R. Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto. V. The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary;
R. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.
Oremus
Deus, qui de beatae Mariae Virginis utero Verbum tuum, Angelo nuntiante, carnem suscipere voluisti: praesta supplicibus tuis; ut, qui vere eam Genetricem Dei credimus, eius apud te intercessionibus adiuvemur. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.
R. Amen. Let us pray
O God, Thou hast willed that at the message of an angel Thy Word should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary; grant to Thy suppliant people, that we, who believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her intercession with Thee. Through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.
Tempore Nativitatis: Christmas Season
V. Post partum, Virgo, inviolata permansisti,
R. Dei Genetrix, intercede pro nobis. V. After giving birth, O Virgin, thou remained a virgin.
R. Mother of God, intercede for us.
Oremus
Deus, qui salutis aeternae, beatae Mariae virginitate fecunda, humano generi praemia praestitisti: tribue, quaesumus; ut ipsam pro nobis intercedere sentiamus, per quam meruimus Filium tuum auctorem vitae suscipere. Qui tecum vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum.
R. Amen. Let us pray
O God, by the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary, Thou hast bestowed upon the human race the rewards of eternal salvation; grant, we beseech Thee, that we may feel the power of her intercession, through whom we have been made worthy to receive the Author of life, Thy Son. Who with Thee lives and reigns forever.
R. Amen.
Tempore Paschali: Easter Season
V. Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, alleluia.
R. Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia. V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
R. Because the Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
Oremus
Deus, qui per resurrectionem Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi, mundum laetificare dignatus es: praesta, quaesumus: ut, per eius Genetricem Virginem Mariam, perpetuae capiamus gaudia vitae. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum.
R. Amen. Let us pray
O God, who by the Resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, granted joy to the whole world: grant we beg Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may lay hold of the joys of eternal life. Through the same Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.
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This is the new rendition of the litany. However, I have added both in Latin and in English the title which is found in the official Vatican website in the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian versions: Mater immaculata.

The Immaculate Conception; and Tolkein

"I will put enmities between thee and the woman." With these words God announced the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to our first parents. It was to be the reversal of the friendship with the serpent contracted by Eve, when she listened to his voice and fell under his power. Mary, the New Eve, was never to be under the power of the devil; the enmity between them would not admit any possible exception. This involved the grace of being conceived immaculate. Mary's Immaculate Conception was the foundation of all her graces. The absence of any stain or spot of sin distinguished her from all the rest of mankind. It distinguished her from the holiest saints, since they, one and all, were sinners. Her perfect sinlessness was the source of all her glory and all her majesty; it was this which opened the door to the unlimited graces that she received from God; it was this that qualified her for her divine maternity, and raised her to her throne as Queen of heaven.

"O Queen conceived without original sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."


Tolkien and the Immaculate Conception

7 DECEMBER 2022 by Father Angelomaria Lozzer (itresentieri.it)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a coherent Catholic: daily Mass, weekly Confession, attachment to the Roman Church, to the Eucharist, to Our Lady.

Some link his catholicity to the education he received at the college of the Oratorian Fathers founded by Saint Newman, and in particular to the strong and decisive guidance of Father Morgan who was for Tolkien like a real father (after his mother's death he was his mentor); others to the shining example of his own mother, defined by Tolkien as a "martyr", because she paid for her conversion to Catholicism with the abandonment by all her family members, and with it the support and economic help sufficient to be able to cure herself of the disease which would lead to her premature death.

All of this certainly contributed to the birth and development of Tolkien's faith, but it would be a mistake to underestimate his personal cooperation, his constant deepening, his ever more firm and more profound conviction matured over the years, that only in the Catholic Faith is every good to be found: truth, beauty, holiness.

His faith drew life above all from two loves, it rested on two pillars, which form the badge of the Catholic in an England where one lives with the most varied Christian confessions, primarily the Anglican one, alongside which Tolkien lived daily; and these two loves, these two pillars are the Eucharist and Our Lady.

In this he had learned the Canon of the Mass and recited it mentally when commitments prevented him from participating in the Holy Mass, as he also often recited the Magnificat , the Litany of Loreto and the Sub tuum praesidium (an ancient Marian prayer) which he had memorized in Latin.

In his works as a writer, in his poems, in his stories, in his fairy tales, in his mythology these two loves seem to continually emerge and re-emerge even if covertly.

Naturally Tolkien reiterated several times that he had not written any allegory about it. In fact, he was convinced that allegory was not the right way to convey the truth, and that indeed many times it would end up trivializing and ridiculing it. On the other hand, however, he could not deny that from faith and in particular from the Eucharist and from Our Lady he had learned all those concepts of beauty, morality, holiness which are scattered in various degrees through his writings and which aim to be a glimmer of light for the reader, a road to lead him towards what goes beyond the simple natural life of every day, what transcends it.

About the Madonna as source of inspiration, in a letter to his Jesuit friend Robert Murray, he wrote: « I think I know exactly what you mean by the doctrine of Grace; and of course with your reference to Our Lady, on which all my little perception of beauty is based both in majesty and in simplicity ».

From this Marian source he drew inspiration to create the brightest and most celestial, most beautiful and wisest, purest and most angelic female figures in his books. This is the case, for example, of the queen of the elves Galadriel, in whose presence the wayfarers of the Company find rest and refreshment, advice and gifts to carry on their mission. And it makes us think, how Tolkien wanted to reconsider this figure again a month before his death in an attempt to exonerate her from any "original" fault; the guilt which was actualized for the elves at the time of Fëanor's rebellion. If in the previous writings Galadriel was involved in sin, in the last writing instead she comes out unscathed and among the fiercest opponents of the disobedience of the Noldor against the Valar. This version did not enter the "official" text of the Silmarillion, but it does help to understand Tolkien's desire to present an all-holy and immaculate figure who was a historical "anticipation" of the Madonna. I say an anticipation because in Tolkien's mind the world of Arda was nothing but a distant myth in time, a myth that arrived before the Christian Revelation; a myth that in a certain sense anticipates, predisposes and prepares it.

Another figure who "anticipates" the Madonna is the queen of the Valar (those we would define as Angels) Elbereth, the queen of the stars and the bitter enemy of Morgoth, the fallen and corrupted Valar in evil (image of lucifer). They turn to her more than any other, elves and men, who in the midst of the perils of Middle-earth seek protection and refuge from evil. Frodo himself invokes her in the lightless night of the tunnel that leads to the dark land of Mordor, finding salvation, hope and strength. And the list goes on with Arwen, King Aragorn's bride, all beauty, wisdom and majesty; or with the young Lady of Rohan Eowyn who cuts off the head of the wicked King of the Nazgul thus fulfilling the foretold prophecies... All figures that in Tolkien's mind were nothing more than a small glimmer, a small anticipation.

Indeed we could say that even the inanimate things of his stories draw poetic inspiration from the Madonna. For example, the same light appears painted as something alive and feminine that expands purity and holiness, driving away evil wherever it reaches with its benevolent rays. In short, we can say with Caldecott: « The natural beauty of landscapes and forests, mountains and rivers, and the moral beauty of heroism and integrity, friendship and honesty – all things celebrated in Tolkien's imaginary world – are gifts from God which come to us through Her, and she is also the measure, her beauty concentrating their essence ».

"This is the figure of Mary that Tolkien always had in mind, who was at the center of his imagination, enveloped in all natural beauties, the most perfect of God's creatures, the treasure of all earthly and spiritual gifts " (Stratford Caldecott, The Secret Fire, Città di Castello 2008).

The highest and most distant for sublimity and holiness, the closest for warmth and sweetness, mercy and motherhood.

The Immaculate Conception & Saint John Henry Newman

What Does it Mean to Call Mary the “New Eve”?

Of course the comparison between Eve and Mary is in all the Fathers ‘mystical throughout,’ not literal. Our Lord is Adam mystically – and Mary is Eve. Unless there is a likeness, there would be no mystical relation. The Lamb of God, the King of Israel, the Elias that was to come, the New Jerusalem are all mystical; but we interpret the new by the old. We say that our Lord was a sacrifice, because he was mystically a Lamb – and Mary sinless because she was mystically Eve. (v. 22; To Robert Charles Jenkins, 26 Feb. 1866)

What is the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary?

You wished, I believe, to know what the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is :- it is this, that the Blessed Virgin is exempt from original sin.… In some rare cases, as in St John Baptist’s, this grace has been given before birth; so that St John was not born in original sin. But, since his soul existed before our Lady’s visit to his Mother, up to that time had been in original sin; therefore he was conceived in original sin, or his conception was not immaculate. By conception is meant the creation of the soul, when at once it is united to the body, and becomes a human being or person. In the first instant then of St John’s existing, or on his conception, he was at once, (as being of the lineage of Adam,) brought into the state of degradation to which Adam had reduced himself and his offspring, But, when divine grace was given him at the time of the Visitation, he was taken out, ipso facto, of that fallen state. Had grace been given to him, not merely three months before his birth, but from the first moment of his existence as a human being, then it would have been right to say of him, that he was conceived without original sin, or that he had an immaculate conception. Now this we believe to have been actually the case as regards the Blessed Virgin. At the very time that her soul was created, grace was given to her, so that she never was without grace, never under the power of sin, even original, never otherwise than immaculate. (v. 22; To Lady Chatterton, 2 Oct. 1865)

As to your question how our Lady can be immaculately conceived, yet it can be true that she sinned in Adam, you will find it explained in my Pamphlet. She sinned in Adam, but, before she actually came to be, the sin was taken off her. Thus a rebel’s children and posterity may be disinherited. They all suffer in him by anticipation, but before the great-grandchild is born the forfeiture may be reversed, and he may actually come into the property from his birth. (v. 24; To Mrs. Helbert, 28 Sep. 1869)

How was Mary’s Immaculate Conception Proclaimed in 1854?

It is remarkable that the Bull does not define the doctrine, but defines that it is revealed, and therefore of faith. (v. 16; To J. D. Dalgairns, 22 Jan. 1855)

Why Do Catholics Adhere to Mary’s Immaculate Conception?

[I]t does surprise me that you find a difficulty in the Immaculate Conception – and, as you say that ‘it presents such obstacles to Anglicans,’ I am led to assure you that I for one felt it no obstacle – on the contrary it seems to me the most natural and necessary of doctrines – and I cannot enter into the minds of those who feel it difficult.… In a Sermon published in 1835, ten years before I became a Catholic, I say, ‘What, think you, was the sanctity and. grace of that human nature of which God formed His sinless Son; knowing, as we do, “that what is born of the flesh is flesh,” and that “none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” I was accused of holding the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, for it was clear that I connected ‘grace’ with the Blessed Virgin’s humanity – as if grace and nature in her case never had been separated. All I could say in answer was, that there was nothing against the doctrine in the 39 Articles. St John Baptist was without original sin three months before his birth – what is then strange or unchristian in the doctrine that our Lady was free from it for nine months that is, from her conception? The grace of God in that case was given to her six months earlier than to the Baptist. Is there anything monstrous in this? If I am asked for proof of the doctrine being held in the early Church, I answer that it seems included in the general belief that the Blessed Virgin was without sin – and, while not much is said about her at all, when she is spoken of, she is spoken of in this aspect. I need not do more than remind you of the well known passage of St Augustine, in which he says that, when Mary is named, he does not wish to make any mention of sin, as if the two names were antagonistic – but what to me is, and ever has been, most striking, is the series of passages from the earliest Fathers in which Mary is contrasted to Eve, as typical contrasts. St Justin (A.D 160) St Irenaeus (A.D. 170) Tertullian (A.D 200) all enlarge on this contrast – and later Fathers hand down the Tradition. The very point indeed in which the contrast is made, is that of obedience – but, when St Irenaeus says, ‘mankind is surrendered to death by a Virgin, and is saved by a Virgin,’ he surely implies that as Eve was without sin, so was Mary. Why indeed is it difficult to suppose that Mary had at least the privilege of Eve? – and Eve had an immaculate conception and birth.… I think I am right in saying, that the only great historical difficulty of the doctrine is the opposition, if it may be so called, of St Bernard and St Thomas – yet to my mind it is clearly shown that they did not mean by the doctrine what the Church now means… the two saints in question were opposing what no one now thinks of maintaining… (v. 19; To Arthur Osborne Alleyne, 30 May 1860)

Why is the Immaculate Conception Implausible to Protestants?

The difficulty which Protestants feel in receiving the doctrine lies in this, that they consider it a substantive self dependent doctrine more than we do. There are doctrines so intimately one with other doctrines, that they are rather their parts or aspects, than distinct from them; so that to prove the one is to prove the other. On the contrary there are doctrines so distinct from each other, that each requires its own proper proof, and to prove the one is no step at all towards proving the other E.g. the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity, and that of the Holy Ghost’s, are independent of each other. This does not imply that; to prove the one is not to prove the other. Again: our Lord’s birth from Mary is one doctrine, and her sanctity is another. The one indeed tends to imply the other, but still they are independent, and must each be proved by itself, if their truth is to be ascertained by argument at all. In these two cases, to say that the second doctrine is an extension of the first, and that it is sufficient to prove the first in order to the reception of the second, few men would allow. On the other hand, if I say, ‘God is Almighty, and is Allwise;’ or ‘the Son of God, is eternal, and He is incomprehensible,’ or ‘the Holy Ghost is in the unity of the Father and the Son, and He is God,’ I put together pairs of propositions, which form parts of one idea respectively, and which are such, that to prove the one is virtually to prove the other.… In this then lies the difference of view, taken by Catholics and Protestants respectively, of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; that Catholics do not view it as a substantive and independent doctrine, so much as one of a family of doctrines which are intimately united together, whereas Protestants consider it as separate from every other, and as requiring a proof of its own as fully as if it were the only thing that we knew of the Blessed Virgin. Catholics think it not much more of an addition to what they otherwise hold of her, than it would be to say, ‘The Son of God is God, therefore He is immensus,’ whereas Protestants think it as little connected with what Catholics themselves otherwise hold of the Blessed Virgin, as the Doctrine of our Lord’s divinity is with that of the divinity of the Holy Ghost.

Why do Protestants thus differ from Catholics in their mode of viewing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception?

I think it arises from the different view which the two religions take of that doctrine, out of which the Immaculate Conception arises, viz the doctrine of original sin. Protestants consider original sin to be an infection of nature, so that man’s nature now is not what it was before the fall. Accordingly, to be conceived without original sin is to have a nature different from that of other men. Hence, according to them, it is blasphemy to say that our Lord was born of the nature of fallen Adam; and it is blasphemy according to their view of that nature.… Now I do not deny that Catholics consider that the natural powers of man are enfeebled by the fall; but they do not admit any infection of nature. They consider (or, they are free to consider) that the Blessed Virgin, that our Lord Himself, though both of them were without Original Sin, still both of them had the nature of fallen Adam. For Original Sin, according to them, consists in the deprivation of the grace of God, which was a gift external and superadded to Adam’s nature. The presence of divine grace is the justifying principle, which makes the soul acceptable to Almighty God; moreover, there are degrees of justification, as there are degrees of grace. Not all the grace conceivable would, in the view of a Protestant, destroy Original Sin; it ever remains an infection, even though it be not imputed; but to a Catholic, on the contrary, the entrance of grace into the soul, as a presence, ipso facto destroys Original Sin. In the view of a Protestant it is no recommendation of the doctrine of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception to urge that St John the Baptist was within six months of such a conception himself; but to a Catholic, who believes that the entrance of grace at the moment of conception is an ipso facto reversal of Original Sin, it acts as a probable argument in favour of her having been saved from Original Sin, that the Baptist, who was below her in dignity, was sanctified three months before his birth.

This difference of view is the cause of what has seemed so strange to you. As a Protestant would think a disputant captious and unfair, who asked for a distinct proof from Scripture, that ‘the godhead and manhood were joined in one Person, never to be divided,’ so a Catholic cannot comprehend why Protestants make so much difficulty and noise about the doctrine which to them is so natural, so intelligible, as the Immaculate Conception. Any passage of the Fathers, which speaks, vaguely but largely, of the grace given to Mary, tells, in his judgment, for the doctrine; for that privilege is but the fulness of grace. On the contrary, to a Protestant it does not go one hair’s breadth toward proving it, for not all the grace conceivable can overcome, as he thinks, a fault of nature. In like manner, any passage of the Fathers, as that of St Augustine, which generally separates her off from sin, suggests to the Catholic the doctrine that she was without original Sin; whereas on the Protestant it has no such effect whatever, because OriginaI Sin, in his view, is not a state different from Adam’s, but a nature different from Adam’s. And further, to the Catholic, (at least before he plunges into past controversy,) it is as little surprising that the Church should define this point and declare it to be de fide, as that the Athanasian Creed should call the Holy Ghost God, though the Nicene does not: to the Protestant on the other hand, it is ‘an unwarranted and audacious addition to the articles of faith’ etc etc. (v. 19; To Arthur Osborne Alleyne, 15 June 1860)

What is the Historical Evidence for the Immaculate Conception?

[A]s to the antiquity of the doctrine. In the first ages original sin was not. formally spoken of in contrast to actual. In the fourth century, Pelagius denied it, and was refuted and denounced by St Augustine. Not till the time of St Augustine could the question be mooted precisely whether our Lady was without original sin or not. Up to his time, and after his time, it was usual to say or to imply that Mary had nothing to do with sin, in vague terms. The earliest Fathers, St Justin, St Irenaeus etc. contrast her with Eve, while they contrast our Lord with Adam. In doing this – 1. they, sometimes imply, sometimes insist upon, the point that Eve sinned when tried, and Mary did not sin when tried; and 2. they say that, by not sinning, Mary had a real part in the work of redemption, in a way in which no other creature had a share. This does not go so far as actually to pronounce that she had the grace of God from the first moment of her existence, and never was under the power of original sin, but by comparing her with Eve, who was created of course without original sin, and by giving her so high an office, it implies it. Next, shortly after St Augustine, the 3rd General Council was held against Nestorius, and declared Mary to be the Mother of God. From this time the language of the Fathers is very strong, though vague, about her immaculateness. In the time of Mahomet the precise doctrine seems to have been taught in the East, for I think he mentions it in the Koran. In the middle ages, when everything was subjected to rigid examination of a reasoning character, the question was raised whether the doctrine was consistent with the Blessed Virgin’s having a human father and mother – and serious objections were felt to it on this score. Men defined the words ‘Immaculate Conception’ differently from what I have done above, and in consequence denied it. St Bernard and St Thomas, in this way, were opposed to it, and the Dominicans. A long controversy ensued and a hot one – it lasted many centuries. At length, in our time, it has been defined in that sense in which I have explained the words above – a sense, which St Bernard, St Thomas, and the Dominicans did not deny. The same controversy about the sense of a word had occurred in the instance of the first General Council at Nicaea. The Nicene Creed uses the word ‘Consubstantial’ to protect the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity against Arius, which the great Council of Antioch some 70 years before had repudiated as a symbol of heresy. In like manner great Saints have repudiated the words ‘Immaculate Conception,’ from taking them in a different sense from that which the Church has accepted and sanctioned. (v. 22; To Lady Chatterton, 2 Oct. 1865)

As to the Immaculate Conception, I consider its tradition, (Quod semper) from the first, is contained in the doctrine ‘Mary is the Second Eve.’ (v. 24; To Edward B. Pusey, 4 July 1869)

Why Did the Immaculate Conception Take So Long to Develop?

You will ask perhaps, ‘Why then was there so much controversy about the doctrine or about its definition?’… I do not see any difficulty in the matter. From the beginning of the Church even good and holy men have got involved in controversies of words.… The devotion to her has gradually and slowly extended through the Church; the doctrine about her being always the same from the first. But the gradual growth of the devotion was a cause why that doctrine, in spite of its having been from the first, should have been but slowly recognised, slowly defined.… ‘The new devotion was first heard of in the ninth century.’ Suppose I say, ‘The new doctrine of our Lord’s immensity, contradicted by all the Ante-nicene Fathers, was first heard of in the creed of St Athanasius?’ or ‘The Filioque, protested against by the Orthodox Church to this day, was first heard of in the 7th Century?’ Whatever principle is adduced to explain the latter statement will avail for the first.… The Holy Ghost’s eternity is involved in His divinity; the Blessed Virgin’s immaculateness in her conception is involved in the general declarations of the Fathers about her sinlessness. If all Catholics have not seen this at once, we must recollect that there were at first mistakes among pious and holy men about the attributes of the Holy Spirit.… I fully grant that there is not that formal documentary evidence for the doctrine in question which there is for some other doctrines, but I maintain also that, from its character, it does not require it. (v. 19; To Arthur Osborne Alleyne, 15 June 1860)

Is the Immaculate Conception Rationally Difficult to Accept?

I never meant to say that I never knew of any one who required information on the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception – but that I never heard of any one who had ‘difficulties’ in receiving it when he understood what it was, who had not other real difficulties too. Did you tell me, after ‘asking counsel of me’ that your difficulties continued as they were? I assure you such a state of mind as inquires and is at length satisfied did not enter into my thoughts when I wrote, nor, as I think, is implied in my language. (v. 21; To J. T. Rodmell, 20 June 1864)

How Could Mary Have a “Savior” if She Was Immaculate?

‘In Adam all die;’ yet no man was yet in existence, when Adam fell. They died before they lived. As the whole race could die, at God’s will, before they existed, so one of that whole race could (at the same will) not only die before she was in being, but be made alive again also. And this last remark suggests to us, how it is that she is to be considered as really redeemed by her Son, though in fact she had no sin to be forgiven.… Yes: she is indisputably among those whom our Lord suffered for and saved; she not only fell in Adam, but she rose in Christ, before she began to be.… In truth, Catholics consider her as the signal and chiefest instance of the power and fulness of redeeming grace; for her Son merited for her that initial grace which was the prevention of Original Sin. (v. 19; To Arthur Osborne Alleyne, 15 June 1860)

Does Mary’s Immaculate Conception Have a Physical Element?

As to the Immaculate Conception, I am perfectly convinced Protestants don’t know what our doctrine is. Dear Robert [Wilberforce] did not, when he wrote his book on the Incarnation as I pointed out to him. There is nothing physical at all in it. The doctrine is simply this – ‘As St John Baptist’s soul was sanctified by the Holy Ghost three months before his birth, so the Blessed Virgin’s soul was sanctified, as many months as it had existed before her birth, i.e. from its very first creation.’ Physical questions do not come in at all in the doctrine – they come in only when, in controversy, we have to reconcile our doctrine with the text, ‘In sin has my mother conceived me – ‘ then we are accustomed to say, ‘The Psalmist speaks of the conception of the body – but our doctrine speaks, not of the body, but of the time when the soul is created, or begins to exist.’… Now we say, that the Blessed Virgin had from the first moment of creation the presence or gift of grace – AS ADAM HAD – and we only say that she was restored (for the sake of the Atonement which was to come) to Adam’s state, and never was in any other state. (v. 19; To William Wilberforce, 9 Dec. 1860)


Dave Armstrong, Cardinal Newman: Q & A in Theology, Church History, and Conversion, Lulu.com, 2015, 271-280.

The answers are drawn from The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman [excluding volumes 11-12, 27-30, 32], whereas the questions are from Mr. Armstrong.

Saint Sabbas, Abbot

The Saint of today's commemoration ('62 Missal), Saint Sabbas, was a 5th Century monastic pioneer in the Holy Land, whose monastic foundation is still in existence. His is one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world.

That Monastery was the home of Saint John Damascene in the 8th Century who is also buried there!

The monks of Mar Saba made a crucial contribution to the development of the liturgy in the Orthodox Church. They compiled a typicon — a book of directions for worship services and ceremonies — that became the standard for the Orthodox world up till the 19th century.

Happy Feast of Saint Sabbas!

The Mass of the Ages, I and II

Blessed Carlo Acutis on Death

Blessed Carlo Acutis (3 May 1991 - 12 October 2006) was born in London and raised in Italy. His parents were not especially devout. However, from the time that Carlo made his First Communion, he rarely missed daily Mass. He also began to pray a daily rosary. A tech whiz, he taught himself coding around the age of nine, and went on to create a website cataloging Eucharistic miracles.

Carlo was distressed when heard people deny the existence of hell. "If souls really run the risk of damning themselves, as indeed so many saints have testified and as the apparitions of Fatima have confirmed, I wonder why, today, we hardly ever talk about hell, because it's such a terrible and dreadful thing that I'm scared just to think about it."

Carlo's father noted, "he always had in mind that we will all have to die one day.... When we spoke to him about a project for the future, he replied: 'Yes, if we are still alive tomorrow...for only God knows the future.'" At fifteen, Carlo became suddenly ill with leukemia. Before even knowing how serious it was, Carlo offered all his sufferings for the pope, the Church, and the intention that he go straight to heaven without pausing in purgatory. He died less that two weeks later, ans was beatified in 2020.

His feast day is 12 October.

Magnificat, November 2022, Vol. 24, No.9, 201.

The Conversion of Mortimer Adler

Discovering Perennial Truth

Mortimer Adler (1902-2001) was a widely influential philosopher and educator in 20th century America. His Socratic pedagogy of seminars based on the "great books" of the Western world aimed to educate people to understand the "great ideas" and engage in the "great conversation" of the Western humanities tradition, not merely as historical artifacts but as paths to discovering the deepest truths and higher purposes of life. He was professor at the University of Chicago and later founded the Institute for Humanistic Studies (which offered seminars for business executives and professionals).

Adler's philosophical mentors were Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. He defended the objectivity of philosophical truth against skepticism and positivism. He collaborated with prominent Catholic philosophers, and his seminars helped more than a few of his students to discover the Church nd become converts. Yet Mortimer Adler himself only came to Christianity slowly. The drameatic depths of his long journey from the "God of the philosophers" to Jesus Christ are unknown to us. But from his own autobiographical testimonies, and from the observations of some friends, we can glimpse signs of the gradual yet distinctive workings of grace.

The son of Jewish immigrants in Manhattan, Adler had a largely secular upbringing. It was philosophy that first introduced him to God, and at Columbia University he first encountered the "integrity, precision, and brilliance" of Thomas Aquinas. Over many decades he pursued the "philosophy of God" as a fascinating and demanding intellectual exercise, and became a convinced Thomist in many respects. But he claimed to have no interest in personal religious faith.

Nevertheless, his real life suggested otherwise. In the late 1930s he was powerfully drawn to the Catholic Church and "agonized over the question" of converting. But he felt hindered by the fear of opposition from his parents, his Episcopalian wife, and his closest friends. Years later, in his 1977 memoirs, he concluded that he didn't receive the grace of faith because he didn't want to convert, he didn't want to change his secular-liberal lifestyle and take up the challenges of Christian living. He wanted to study God, but also keep him at a distance.

Adler's first wife divorced him, and we know little of the origins or details of this relationship. His marriage to the devout Episcopalian Caroline Pring in 1963, however, seemed to represent a step forward toward a relationship with God. Caroline witnessed to the importance of her own faith, and her hope that he might share it someday. Mortimer's grave illness in 1984 finally opened up the long-awaited possibility. The pastor of Caroline's church visited him in the hospital and prayed for his recovery, and something mysterious happened. The eighty-two-year-old philosopher wept, and began saying the Lord's Prayer. For days afterward, he continued to repeat the Our Father (the only prayer he knew). He realized that--for the first time--he was praying to the God he had studied for so long. He repented of his sins and was baptized in the Episcopal church on April 21, 1984.

One step remained before him. He returned to the Aspen Institute seminars and a new generation of young Catholic Thomist philosophers who befriended him, along with Father Pierre DuMaine, the future Catholic bishop of San Jose, California. Mortimer and Caroline eventually retire to San Mateo (in DuMaine's diocese), where she passed away in 1998. The following year, at the age of ninety-seven, Mortimer Adler was received into the Catholic Church by his friend Bishop DuMaine, after so many years of learning from Christ's brilliant and humble disciple Saint Thomas Aquinas.

John Janaro in Magnificat, November 2022, Vol.24, No.9, 276-277.

___

Mortimer Adler: Champion of Great Books Education
By Erik Ellis
March 14, 2022
www.realcleareducation.com

Even now, decades after his death, eighth-graders everywhere get to read the Odyssey, thanks to the efforts of a man born to Jewish immigrants in the heart of New York City. Philosopher and educator Mortimer Adler is largely responsible for what we call Great Books education. Adler wanted more for America’s youth than he had received from his Ivy League professors, so he worked to bring the American education system back into the Western tradition.

Adler was born into a world with diminishing respect for that tradition. Writings from Homer to Augustine were taught only to the elite, and usually in excerpts. Charles Eliot, Harvard University’s president at the time, had purged most of the core curriculum at his institution, an act that put the hammer to Greek and Latin studies. Eliot tried to remedy the situation by publishing “Dr. Eliot’s Five-Foot Shelf of Books,” a compilation of influential works of literature and philosophy, but Adler didn’t think this adequately accounted for the classical tradition. Adler’s professor at Colombia, John Dewey, spent much of his life fighting the liberal arts education model, favoring vocational training for students. The two did not get along.

As Adler saw it, the benefit to his Ivy League education was revealed to him in a single English class. John Erskine, an English professor who became the first president of the Juilliard School, introduced Adler to the Socratic seminar. In Erskine’s class, students would read a book every week and discuss their findings in the classroom. Erskine would speak as little as possible, only asking questions to guide students to new topics. Adler went on to popularize this method, an effort now considered one of his greatest accomplishments.

After graduating from Colombia, Adler began his crusade against the ideas made popular by Dewey and his associates. He disdained the idea of training students for a single job and scolded those who discouraged the goal of self-improvement. In the preface to his book “Aristotle for Everybody,” Adler wrote, “When I say ‘everybody,’ I mean everybody except professional philosophers; in other words, everybody of ordinary experience and intelligence unspoiled by the sophistication and specialization of academic thought.” He wrote for everyone, of any age and class, simply because he believed it was right for them to be educated.

When he wasn’t writing books, Adler was finding other ways to get his message across. He ran night schools for labor unions, made appearances on television and radio programs, and developed The Great Books of the Western World series for Encyclopedia Britannica. The more people who knew the themes of the great books, the more people there would be who could rejoice in and contribute to what Adler called “the Great Conversation.”

In his studies of literature and philosophy, Adler found common topics of discussion. The ideas of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and other ancient philosophers overlapped, which proved to Adler that some topics are prevalent throughout time and across cultures. Adler assembled a guide to these ideas in a volume he called “A Syntopicon.” Education in great books meant following the themes in the “Syntopicon” and ultimately joining in the Great Conversation about them. By doing so, a larger number of people than ever before could engage with these ideas. Broadening participation in such philosophical discussion was one of Alder’s main goals.


Many of Adler’s critics wondered what the point was in continuing the Great Conversation. As they saw it, a common person could add little to the findings of Aristotle, and Aristotle, in turn, had little to say that addressed present problems. In Adler’s mind, however, Aristotle’s insights were of permanent value, and common people could and should engage with them, learn from them, and even try to put them into practice. The Great Conversation that Adler reignited a century ago is now a tool that anyone can use to craft a common intellectual heritage.

The study of integrated humanities through a chronological framework that melds history, philosophy, and literature together owes to the work of Mortimer Adler. This practice has extended from higher education to primary and secondary schools across the country. Americans would do well to reflect on and revisit these philosophical inquiries. In doing so, they may yet contribute, in their own small way, to the Great Conversation.

Erik Ellis is a Research Fellow at the Center for Thomas More at the University of Dallas and works in the faculty of philosophy at the University of the Andes in Santiago, Chile. This overview of Mortimer Adler is based on his interview with Scott Bertram on the Hillsdale College Classical Education Podcast.

Saint Jerome Classic Quotes

Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus (340-420)

Alms
Preferring to store her money in the stomachs of the needy rather than hide it in a purse.

Apostolicity
The Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism.

If one is not in the arc of Noah, he perishes in the reigning flood. (Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, Herder, 1959, 494) 

“If a soul is not clothed with the teachings of the Church he cannot merit to have Jesus seated in him. 

Clericalism
Shun, as you would the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who, from being nobody has become a celebrity.

Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.

Detraction
No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that you do not listen to it with pleasure.

The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by telling against ourselves.

Diligence
Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved.

No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow.

Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.

The tired ox treads with a firmer step.

Do not let your deeds belie your words, lest when you speak in church someone may say to himself, “Why do you not practice what you preach?”

Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.

Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied.

Begin now what you will be hereafter.

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life.

The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it.

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.

When I could not see the light with my blind eyes, I blamed not my eyes, but the sun.

If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.

Discretion
It is idle to play the lyre for an ass.

Drunkenness
Wine is the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young.

Eucharist
If Christ did not want to dismiss the Jews without food in the desert for fear that they would collapse on the way, it was to teach us that it is dangerous to try to get to heaven without the Bread of Heaven.

Whoever eats the Lamb outside the House built by Christ on the chair of Peter is profane. (Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, Herder, 1959, 494)

Without doubt, the Lord grants all favors which are asked of Him in Mass, provided they be fitting for us.

The Face
The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.

Early impressions are hard to eradicate from the mind. When once wool has been dyed purple, who can restore it to its previous whiteness?

Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.

Fortitude
If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and forever in the next.

Friendship
A friend is long sought, hardly found, and with difficulty kept.

True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.

The friendship that can cease has never been real.

Gratuity
Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Ingorance
It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.

Innocence
Malice swallows the greatest part of its own venom.

Failure is the inspiration of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.

What cannot be changed cannot be blamed.

Judgement
To perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize.

Magnanimity
Small minds can never handle great themes.

Music
We need more music that is passionate and meaningful and honest.

Music to me is a voice, my voice, it’s my way of expressing what colours can I bring in, what emotions, what feel. What ideas can I bring out from these instruments that would make this song come alive.

Old Age
Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.

Other-worldliness
Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.

Neither Britain, a land fertile in tyrants, nor the people of Ireland, knew Moses and the prophets.

The fact is that my native land is a prey to barbarism, that in it men’s only God is their belly, that they live only for the present, and that the richer a man is the holier he is held to be.

It is not being in Jerusalem, but living a good life there that is praiseworthy.

The Roman world is in collapse but we do not bend our neck.

Prayer
We must love Christ and always seek Christ's embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy.

When we pray we speak to God;
but when we read, God speaks to us.

It is our part to seek,
His to grant what we ask;
ours to make a beginning,
His to bring it to completion;
ours to offer what we can,
His to finish what we cannot.

To saints their very slumber is a prayer.

Nothing is hard for lovers, no labor is difficult for those who wish it.

My speech is too fast; my oration confused; love knows no order.

Love knows nothing of order.

No created mind, no created heart, no human force is capable of knowing how much love the Heart of Mary had for the Lord.

Providence
So valuable to heaven is the dignity of the human soul that every member of the human race has a guardian angel from the moment the person begins to be.

Scripture
Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom.

Make knowledge of the Scripture your love... Live with them, meditate on them, make them the sole object of your knowledge and inquiries.

A false interpretation of Scripture causes that the Gospel of the Lord becomes the gospel of man, or, which is worse, a gospel of the devil.

A man who is well grounded in the testimonies of the Scripture is the bulwark of the Church.

Serenity

Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you.

No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the sender of it. 

Haste is of the Devil.

What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way.

The enemy of reflection is the breakneck pace – the thousand pictures.

That rain is the best which falls steadily on the earth. A sudden and excessive downpour ruins the fields.

Shrewdness
The scars of others should teach us caution.

Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice.

The Sorrowful Mother
Even while living in the world, the heart of Mary was so filled with motherly tenderness and compassion for men that no-one ever suffered so much for their own pains, as Mary suffered for the pains of her children.

Tradition
The best advice that I can give you is this: Church-traditions- especially when they do not run counter to the faith- are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down... The traditions which have been handed down should be regarded as apostolic laws.

Transcendence
There are things in life that are bigger than ourselves. Life is short, live it well.

Veracity
Everything must have in it a sharp seasoning of truth.

Virginity
Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.

Virginity can be lost by a thought.

And as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins in Paradise: but after they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were immediately married.

If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is bad to touch a woman always and in every case.

Matrimony is always a vice, all that can be done is to excuse it and sanctify it; therefore it was made a religious sacrament.

Strictly speaking, one should not even rightly compare virginity to marriage because you cannot make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil.

I praise wedlock, I praise marital union, but only because they produce me virgins.

Marriage fills the Earth, virginity Heaven.

Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life.

Among us, what is not allowed to women is equally not allowed to men.

For the preservation of chastity, an empty and rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable.

Woman is the gate of the devil, the road to iniquity, the sting of the scorpion, in a word, a dangerous species.

Worldliness
Every day we are changing, every day we are dying, and yet we fancy ourselves eternal.

All riches come from iniquity, for unless one man loses another man cannot gain. Hence the common adage seems to me to be very true: The rich man is unjust, or he is heir to an unjust man.

A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.

A vice in the heart is an idol on the altar.

It is no fault of Christianity that a hypocrite falls into sin.

They talk like angels but they live like men.

While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evildoing.

Vanity is truly the motive power that moves humanity, and it is flattery that greases the wheels.

The line, often adopted by strong men in controversy, is justifying the means by the end.

When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.

They please the world most, who please Christ least.

How to Fight Against Lust

IN ENCOUNTERING THIS VICE we must use special tactics and greater resolution. In order to do this we must distinguish three phases of the operation------the first, which precedes the temptation------the second, during the temptation------the third, which follows the temptation.

1. Before the time of temptation we must avoid all persons and occasions that would expose us to sin. If it is necessary that we speak to such people, do it as speedily as possible; speak only on serious subjects with corresponding modesty and gravity. We must not permit the conversation to become familiar or frivolous.

Do not presume on your own strength despite the fact that after many years spent in the world you have remained firm against the force of concupiscence. For lust often achieves in one instant what whole years could not effect. Sometimes it will make long preparations for the assault. Then the wound is more dangerous when it comes least expected and under a disguise.

Avoid undue familiarity.
It must likewise be noted, and every day experience proves this, that the danger is always greatest on those occasions where there is the least appearance of evil. Here it is founded on the plausible pretenses of friendship, gratitude, obligation, or on the merit and virtue of the persons involved. Impure inclinations imperceptibly insinuate themselves into such friendships through frequent visits, prolonged conversations, and indiscreet familiarities until the poison reaches the heart. The intellect, then, is so blinded that it even connives at amorous glances, tender expressions, and facetious liberties in conversation which bring violent and almost irresistible temptations.

Fugite! (cf. 1 Cor. 6:18; Gen. 39:12)
a. Be cautious------run away------you are more susceptible to occasions of this sin than straw is to fire. Do not rely on your own strength or on some resolution you have taken to die rather than offend God. Despite your good intentions, frequent exciting conversations will enkindle a flame that cannot be extinguished. The impetuous desire of satisfying your passions will make you deaf to the warning of your friends. You will lose the fear of God, your reputation and even your life will be disregarded. Not even the fear of the flames of Hell will be able to master the fury of the sensual fires enkindled in your heart. Look for safety, then, in flight. There is no other way to escape. Too much confidence will end in eternal destruction. Regarding lust, flight is the best fight.

b. Avoid idleness. Determine what you have to do, and then fulfill exactly the duties of your position in life.

c. Obey your superiors (and all rightful authority) promptly; do what they command. In the things that are most mortifying and opposed to your inclinations, be even more cheerful.

d. Never judge others rashly, particularly in regard to impurity. If any are unfortunate enough to fall into such disorder, and even if the affair becomes public, you must not treat them with scorn and contempt. Rather pity their weakness, and take advantage of the occasion to humble yourself before God, acknowledging that you are but dust and ashes. Redouble your prayers and avoid with greater care all dangerous company, however insignificant may be your reasons for suspecting it. For if you permit yourself the liberty of severe judgments on your neighbors, God will permit you, for your punishment and amendment, to fall into the same faults for which you condemned others, in order that by such humiliation you may discover your own pride and rashness, and then you can find proper remedies for both.

Although it is possible that you would avoid these degrading sins, yet be assured that, if you continue to form these rash judgments, you are: in great danger of ruin.

e. If you discover that your heart is rich in spiritual comforts and joys, you must be on guard against a secret complacency with yourself, against imagining that you have attained perfection and that the enemy can no longer do you any harm because you apparently have nothing but scorn and contempt for him. The greatest caution is necessary here to prevent a relapse.

2. During the actual time of temptation. In the first place, we must determine whether the cause of the temptation is exterior or interior.

By an exterior cause is meant curiosity of the eyes or ears to the point where decency suffers, vanity in one's dress, too tender friendships, and indiscreet familiarities. Modesty and decency are the proper remedies for this evil; they shut the eyes and ears to those things that cloud the imagination. The real remedy, as we have said, is to run away from all such occasions of sin.

Interior causes proceed from a pampered body, from many bad thoughts that come from evil habits or the suggestions of the devil. When the body has been pampered too much, it must be mortified by fasting, discipline, and other austerities which, however, must always be regulated by discretion and obedience.

From whatever source unchaste thoughts may arise, we can drive them away by serious application to our proper duties, and by prayer and meditation.

Your prayer should be conducted in the following manner. When you see these thoughts present themselves and attempt to make an impression, recollect yourself and speak to Christ crucified saying: 

"Sweet Jesus, come to my rescue, that I may not fall a victim to my enemies." 

On certain occasions you may embrace a Crucifix representing your dying Savior, kiss the marks of the Sacred Wounds on His feet and say with great confidence and affection:

"O adorable, thrice holy Wounds! Imprint your marks on my heart which is filled with evil, and preserve me from consenting to sin."

In your meditations I am not of the opinion [as several authors are] that, when the temptation is most violent, you should consider the degrading and insatiable nature of these sins in order to establish a hatred for impurity, that you should consider how they are followed by disgust, remorse and anxiety, even by the loss of one's fortune, health, life, honor, etc. These considerations are not appropriate to the situation and, instead of freeing us from the danger, they frequently only increase it. If the understanding drives away evil thoughts, these reflections naturally call them back.

The best way to become free of these is to remove not only the thoughts themselves, but also the reflections directly contrary to them. In attempting to dissipate them by their contraries, we merely renew the impure ideas and unconsciously imprint them still deeper. Be satisfied with meditation on the life and death of our Savior. If, while you are doing this, the same thoughts should return, even more disturbing than before, as may possibly happen, do not be discouraged or abandon your meditation, do not exert yourself in driving them away. Ignore and despise these miserable deceits of the devil and persist, with all possible attention, in your meditation on the death of our Savior. Nothing can be more effective in putting your enemy to flight, despite his determination to resist.

Conclude your meditation with some prayer such as the following:

"O My Creator and Redeemer, save me from my enemies through Thy infinite goodness and the merits of Thy bitter passion."

But remember, when you say this do not think about the particular vice from which you are endeavoring to free yourself. The least reflection on it may be dangerous. Above all, do not waste any time disputing with yourself about how much you may have yielded to the temptation. Such scrutiny is an invention of the enemy, who under the deceiving appearance of an imaginary duty, attempts to renew the attack, or at least hopes to make some impression with the bad thoughts he had poured into your mind. When, therefore, it is evident that you have consented to the evil, let it suffice to tell your confessor/spiritual director in a few words just what has occurred. Do just as he advises, and do not trouble yourself further with it.

You must be sure, however, not to conceal anything because of shame or any other reason. If humility is necessary to conquer our common enemies, it is infinitely more so in this case because this vice is, for the most part, a just punishment for pride.

3. After you have conquered the temptation, you should conduct yourself as follows. Although you enjoy complete peace and consider yourself safe, avoid with the greatest care all objects that tend to temptation. Exclude them completely from your mind, even if they seem to be virtuous or good. These perversions are the illusions of a corrupt nature or traps laid by the devil, who would transform himself into an Angel of light in order to drag you down with him into the darkness of Hell itself.

Father Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat: A Treatise on Peace of Soul, TAN: Rockford, 1990, 53-59.

Fugite Fornicationem

The Devotion of "The Three Hail Mary's"

Below I suggest an easy way to fulfill the powerful daily devotion of the three Hail Mary's. Then I offer a few brief reasons for it.

The Devotion of "The Three Hail Mary's"

At bedtime, at the bedside, kneeling, make The Sign of the Cross and say three Hail Mary's and a Glory Be, closing again with The Sign of the Cross. (At the start of this nightly devotion it is good to make also a brief examination of conscience [with a quick glance over the day] to repent of one's sins and make a short Act of Contrition, e.g. Kyrie eleison [Lord, have mercy!].)

Rising, again kneeling at the bedside, make The Sign of the Cross and say the three Hail Mary's and a Glory Be, closing with The Sign of the Cross. At the start of this morning prayer it is good to briefly make the intention to offer the day to God with all of its joys and sorrows. (An Apostle's Creed may be used for this daily offering.)

Another convenient and highly commendable context of the three Hail Mary's is at midday, to simply say The Angelus, wherever you may find yourself. It consists, basically, in three Hail Mary's.

Some Reasons for this Devotion

Piety, supernatural piety is essential for man, because man is relational, and the most basic relationship is man's personal intimate relationship with God, responding to the divine initiative. It is of the distinctive nature of man to think of his own approaching death, judgment, and eternal retribution (heaven and hell). "I am the Lord your God" is the first commandment of the law of God. To love God is the first necessity of man, and the best way to do that is through Mary.

Constancy is an important virtue to persevere in piety, to have a serious interior life with God. It is important to make a commitment to God and to keep it. "Make your vows to the Lord and keep them." Psalm 76:11

The Church, in fact, grants a plenary indulgence, available at the moment of death (in articulo mortis), to faithful, properly disposed, who habitually recited some prayers in their lifetime, even if unable to be assisted by a priest and the sacraments. That is an assurance of heaven, for those who want to be saved.
Enchiridion of Indulgences, 1968, 28.

Humility

Humility consists in three things: penitence/confession, forgiveness, and right worship.

In his treatise on humility Saint Bernard names three levels of truth as the sources of true humility.

1. Consider and admit one's own wretchedness => confession and penitence.

2. Have pity on the wretchedness of others, in light of the consideration of one's own wretchedness => fraternal correction and forgiveness.

3. Purify the eye of one's heart to contemplate heavenly and divine things.

Cf. Saint Bernard, On the Levels of Humility and On Pride, Chapters 4-6.

Cf. Podcast on the twelve levels of humility in Saint Bernard.

College Catholic Identity

Below are ten questions of The National Catholic Register for determining the Catholic identity of Catholic Colleges.

44 Colleges in 2022 are on record with their affirmative responses.

1. Did the president make the public “Profession of Faith” and take the “Oath of Fidelity”? Yes
2. Is the majority of the board of trustees Catholic? Yes
3. Is the majority of the faculty Catholic? Yes
4. Do you publicly require all Catholic theology professors to have the mandatum? Yes
5. Did all Catholic theology professors take the “Oath of Fidelity”? Yes
6. Do you provide daily Mass and posted times (at least weekly) for individual confession? Yes
7. Do you exclude advocates of abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, cloning or advocates of the redefinition of marriage as commencement speakers and/or recipients of honorary degrees? Yes
8. Do you exclude sponsoring campus groups and clubs that are not in line with Catholic teaching? Yes
9. Do you prohibit coed dorms? Yes
10. Do your student health services prohibit referrals to abortion businesses? Yes

Humble Prayer is Efficacious

In light of this Sunday's Ordinary Form Gospel (Luke 18:9-14), I offer below a couple of texts from Saint Thomas Aquinas on the efficacy of prayer: a spurious Sermon of Saint Thomas Aquinas and his commentary on a relevant passage of the Gospel of Saint John. The translation of the Sermon is from Plinthos.

ASK AND YOU SHALL RECIEVE

1. The Apostle says to the Romans that we often do not know that for which we ought to pray. Therefore, our advocate is Jesus Christ, of whom John speaks in his canon: we have an advocate to the Father, Jesus Christ, and this just one, and he is the propitiation for our sins, this advocate invites us today to ask, and promises to give us, nay, swears to give us, provided that we ask in the name of the Savior what is necessary for our salvation. Hence it is said at the beginning of today's Gospel: "Amen, amen I say to you that if you ask the Father for anything in my name, he will give it to you."

2. This advocate encourages us to apply, and teaches us how to form our application. According to this, in these words, he touches on three things. First, he invites us to ask: ask; secondly, he assures us of obtaining; and you will receive; and thirdly, that we may rightly ask what is necessary for us: that your joy, he says, may be full, because it is said elsewhere: to everyone who has, it will be given, and it will abound, and in Luke: ask and you will receive; Seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Ask with confidence, and you will receive the gift of fortune by which the body is supported; seek diligently, and you will find the good of grace by which the soul is renewed; knock incessantly, and the doors of glory will be opened to you, so that your joy may be filled. First, then, the Lord invites us to petition in these words, in which the utmost courtesy of him is noted, who so courteously invites us to petition. Now there are four things which should move us much to ask: first, our want and necessity; secondly, the supreme liberality of Christ; thirdly, the propriety of the time of asking; fourth, to obtain security.

I say that the first thing that should move us to ask is our lack, or necessity. For we have nothing good from ourselves, but from God. Apostle: What do you have, that is, good things that you did not receive? If you have received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? A sinner has nothing of himself but his own sin, and he who is in mortal sin loses all that he does, because as James says in his canon: if a man has kept the whole law, but offends in one point, he has become guilty of all. Whoever offends God by transgressing his commandments will be condemned for one sin as for many. Or, he who stumbles in the one giver of all good things, Christ, has become guilty of all, that is, he will suffer the loss of all evils. Or, he who offends in one, that is, against the precept of charity, because charity is the mother of all virtues, has become guilty of other virtues: just as he who offends the father of a family, by consequence also the whole family. The sinner, therefore, who lies in many sins is placed in great misery, because he does not know his own shortcomings, which John clearly rebuked in the Apocalypse: you say I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing: and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. You say that I am rich in knowledge, rich in riches, I need nothing, because I am healthy and strong, and you do not know that you are miserable because of the commission of guilt, miserable because of the loss of gratuitous goods, poor because of the plunder of virtues, blind because of your lack of knowledge, naked because of infamy. Sin makes all things evil. Therefore, we must first be moved to ask by our poverty and necessity, which is so great that we have nothing good from ourselves, nay, only sins and shortcomings, and whatever good we have, we have from God.

The second thing that should move us to ask is the supreme liberality of Christ. For he is the most generous distributor of all goods, which is signed by that King Ahasuerus, of whom we read what he said to Queen Esther: if you ask for half of my kingdom, I will give it to you. He does not give his friends a part of his kingdom, but his whole kingdom. He reigned over one hundred and twenty provinces, this one reigns over the whole world. Therefore, more than Ahasuerus. He is the one who gives judicially, generally, abundantly. These three are noted in a certain authority which James says: He gives to all abundantly, and does not reproach. He gives, he does not sell: here is the curiosity; to all: behold abundance; and he does not scold: behold freedom. His gift is not the gift of a fool, of which it is said: The gift of a fool will not profit you; he will give, and he will scold you. The common saying has no place here: to the good petitioner, a good refuter; but: to the good seeker, the most generous giver. For every best gift, and every perfect gift, came down from the father of lights. The good given is the gift of fortune: the better given, the gift of nature; the best given, the gift of grace; the perfect given, the gift of glory. He gives all these gifts. He is more ready to give than to receive from us, of whom Gregory says: Let human laziness be ashamed, because God wants to give more than we receive; He wants more to extend his mercy on us than to deliver us from misery. And yet, since his courtliness is so great, he complains of some who do not want to ask, when the blessed Gregory says of him: He does not deny himself who offers himself to give much to all who ask. For he knows that we need much. Without it we can do nothing.

The third thing that should move us to ask is the appropriateness of the timing. He who has to do something in the court of any prince keeps the proper time, when the lord is happy, and the family happy. In this way, it is an appropriate time to ask, when our Lord Jesus Christ, through the representation of our flesh, goes to the heavenly court, to ask the Father for us. Hence there are simply days of petitioning, in which God wants us to petition him, because, when he himself ascends to heaven, the angelic citizens and all the lords of heaven rejoice. And therefore, because the time is simply opportune, let us not wait with the rich man, who slowly asked for a drop of water, and did not obtain it; nor with foolish virgins to whom the door is closed. For this reason it is said in the Psalm: the time of his pity has come. Every saint will pray to you for this. For this, namely, the remission of sins, that God may forgive our sins. For for this the Holy Spirit was given, and for this it is to be sought. Hence in Matthew: If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?

The fourth thing that should move us to ask is the security of obtaining, and this follows from the first three considerations, because from the fact that our poverty and necessity are so great, God's kindness is so great, and the time is opportune to ask for it, it is clear that the security of obtaining is to be had. Hence in the canon of John; This is the confidence we have in God, that whatever we ask, he will hear us. The gloss says: if we ask for the necessities of our salvation. It is true that today many are lazy to ask and pray, so two other things above all else should move us to ask, namely the preciousness of prayer and the great necessity. Preciousness, because since these three goods, fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, are what direct us to have eternal life, prayer is more worthy, because fasting and almsgiving are with respect to that which is near us, prayer is with respect to that which is above us. Wherefore he is more worthy, because he goes to God, and there he fulfills a command which the flesh cannot reach. The necessity of prayer is evident from the three reasons for which men cry, because of fire, water, and robbers. The fire of lust infests us; the water of avarice troubles us; infernal robbers infest and trouble us; and therefore, because we have so many opponents in the present, we must frequently send prayers to God, that he may hear us through grace in the present, and grant us eternal life in the future.

3. It was said in the first part of the sermon that there are many things that should move us to ask. It is true that there are many things by which our petition may be frustrated, therefore in this discourse we can place seven impediments by which our petition is frustrated. The first obstacle is because of the indiscretion of the claimant. Secondly, because of the hesitancy, or doubt, of the petitioner. Thirdly, because of the impurity and unworthiness of the petitioner. Fourthly, because of hypocrisy. Fifth, because of hatred and rancor. Sixth, because of hardness toward the neighbor. And the seventh, because of the contempt toward and disobedience of the divine law.

The first obstacle, therefore, is due to the indiscretion of the petitioner. James says of this: You ask and do not receive, because you ask badly, that is, indiscriminately, as the mother of Zebedee's sons asked, that one may sit at the right hand of God, and another at the left in his kingdom. To whom the Lord answered: You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I'm about to drink? That is, to suffer a similar suffering that I am going to suffer? We can, they said; and the Lord: you shall drink my cup; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to give you, and the rest. Gloss: without previous merits. Against those who ask for secular honor, Augustine says thus: when those who ask for the things that God praises and promises, ask them securely from God, because God grants them. But when you ask for temporary things, ask with discretion. Whether they benefit us or hinder us, God knows better than man. Many, however, are more willing to ask God for temporal things than for eternal ones, and all such people ask indiscriminately, because it is not of God to give so small a gift, just as it is not proper to give a penny to the king of France. Or God does not gladly hear such people, because it is not to their advantage, just as children pray that they may not be beaten in school, but they are not heard.

The second obstacle that one is not heard is because of his hesitation or doubt. Against whom James demands nothing wavering in faith. For he who hesitates is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind. Therefore that man will not think to receive anything from God. Gregory: He who seeks the Lord in doubt is made unworthy of the heavenly blessing. This is what John says in his canon: whatever you ask in faith, believe that you will receive it.

The third obstacle is the unworthiness of the petitioner and impurity. This is what Isaiah says: when you multiply your prayers, I will not hear you; he gives the cause: for your hands, that is, your work, are full of blood, that is, sin, and so on. We have acted unjustly, and provoked you to anger; therefore you are inexorable. Against such in the Psalm: if you consider the iniquities that are in my heart, Gloss: you will not hear; Gloss: there the purity of prayer is heard by God. But it is a pure prayer which in its time is blocked by the cares of the world. The mind is far from God when it is occupied with worldly cares. First, therefore, the mind must be purified, and freed from worldly cares, so that the mind's line of thought may be directed to God. We have an example in the physical eye. If the bishop of Paris would not give the provisions of his Church to the unclean and the revilers, how will the pontiff give the provisions of glory to the heavenly voluptuous?

The fourth obstacle is because of hypocrisy and pretense. For the hypocrite cries out with his mouth, and is silent in his heart. In whose person is Isaiah: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Gregory: If we seek eternal life with our mouth, and do not long for it with our heart, we are silent while we cry out. Hence he says a remarkable word in the person of the hypocrite: the hypocrite, he says, cries out when the tribulation of temporal things distresses him, whom God does not hear at the proper time because he did not hear the Lord's cry in the time of peace.

The fifth hindrance is because of the hatred and malice of the heart. In Ecc. No one receives forgiveness from God unless he leaves his grudge against his brother. An example in the Gospel about that wicked servant who was told by his master: wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt, because you asked me, was it not necessary to have mercy on your fellow servant, as I also had mercy on you? And he ordered them to be handed over to the torturers until he had paid the entire debt. And the Evangelist concludes: My heavenly Father will do the same to you, if you do not each of you forgive from your hearts. This is the agreement that the Lord makes with us: forgive, and it will be forgiven you, otherwise not. Therefore, in the Sunday prayer: forgive us, and so on.

The sixth obstacle is because of hardness towards the neighbor, like these rich people who have so much of the goods of this world and do not want to give anything to the poor of Christ; thus because they do not show mercy, nor will they find any after death from God, just as the rich man did not get a drop of water in Hell because he refused to help poor Lazarus with breadcrumbs.

The seventh and last obstacle is due to contempt of and disobedience to the divine law. In Ecc.: he who stops his ear from hearing the law, his speech will be execrable, that is, he will not be heard in the assembly of the heavenly court, just as someone excommunicated is not heard in the court of any secular judge. Note that above all this is valid for obtaining for man consideration for his own frailty, and the consideration of the goodness of God. Hence Isidore: when we come to pray before God, we must groan and weep, recalling how many and grievous are the sins we have committed, how cruel the punishments of Hell we have deserved, how incomparable the joys we await. Thieves and swindlers teach us to pray. The robber, noticing what he had done and the cannon prepared for him, begged mercy between these two with many tears. Swindlers show their weaker and baser members to others, and hide their healthy ones, in order to move others to pity. Thus let us show our infirmities, our sins, to God in the present, that he may presently hear us by grace, and grant us, in the future, eternal life. Amen.

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LECTURE 6

John 16:23 "In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father [in my name], he will give it to you in my name. 24 Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." (St. Thomas refers to Jn 16:23 in the Summa Theologiae: II-II, q. 83, a. 7, obj. 2.)

2135 Above, our Lord enlarged on two things which would comfort his apostles, the promise of the Paraclete and his own return. Here he mentions a third reason by which he comforts them, promising them access to the Father. First, he promises them an intimate relationship with the Father; secondly, he gives a reason for this intimacy (v 25). He does two things about the first: he gives them that security that comes from confidence; secondly, he encourages them to act on their confidence (v 24). He does two things with the first: first, he rejects a need for an intercessor; secondly, he promises them an opportunity to ask (v 23).

2136 He says, In that day you will ask nothing of me. According to Augustine, where we have ask, the Greeks have a word which means two things: to ask for something, and to ask or pose a question. (Tract. in Io., 101, ch. 4, col. 1894; cf. Catena Aurea, 16:23-28.) Consequently, In that day you will ask nothing of me can mean two things: you will not ask me for anything, or you will not question me about anything.

In that day. What that day is can be seen from what he said before, "I will see you again" (v 22). This can be understood to be the day of his resurrection, or the day when we have the vision of his glory.

2137 Chrysostom understands this passage the first way. (In Ioannem hom., 79, ch. 1; PG 59, col. 427; cf. Catena Aurea, 16:23-28.) Thus, In that day, when I arise from the dead, you will ask nothing of me, that is, you will not say such things as "Show us the Father." Augustine objects to this interpretation because after the resurrection the disciples did say: "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts (1:6); and Peter poses the question: "Lord, what about this man?" (20:21).

Yet one can uphold Chrysostom's explanation by saying that our Lord calls that day not only the day of his resurrection, but also that day the disciples were to be taught by the Holy Spirit: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will teach you all truth" [16:13]. And so by speaking in a vague manner of that time, our Lord also includes the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is like saying: In that day, once the Holy Spirit has been given, you will ask nothing of me, because you will know all things by the Holy Spirit: "His anointing teaches you about everything" (1 Jn 2:27). Again, according to Chrysostom, In that day, when the Holy Spirits comes, you will ask nothing of me, that is, you will have no need to ask me.

2138 But after the resurrection did not the apostles pray to Christ for things? It seems so, for the Apostle says: "Three times I besought the Lord," that is, Christ (2 Cor 12:8). I answer that there are two natures in Christ: his human nature, by which he is the mediator between God and us (1 Tim 2:5), and his divine nature, by which he is one God with the Father. Christ, considered as having a human nature, was not a mediator who never united us to God, like some mediators who never unite extremes. So, Christ joins us to the Father. Now to join God the Farther and to join Christ as God are the same. Thus he says: It is not necessary for you to use my mediation as man. Thus, In that day you will ask nothing of me as mediator, because you will have access to God by yourselves ‑ but you will ask me as God. Although Christ intercedes for us, as the Apostle says (Rom 8:34), still the Church does not ask him as an intercessor. Thus we do not say, "Christ, pray for us"; but we do ask him as God, adhering to him as God by faith and love.

2139 Augustine explains this passage as referring to the day of the vision of glory in this way: In that day, when I see you in glory, you will ask nothing of me, that is, you will not ask me for anything because there will be nothing left to desire, since all goods will be ours in superabundance in our homeland: "You will fill me with joy by your face" [Ps 16:11]; and again, "I will be satisfied when your glory appears" [Ps 17:15]. (Tract. in Io., 102, ch. 2, col. 1897; cf. Catena Aurea, 16:23-28.) Also, you will ask no questions because you will be filled with the knowledge of God: "In your light do we see light" (Ps 36:9).

2140 An objection can be raised against both of these points. The saints do pray in our homeland: "Call now, if there is any who will answer you; and turn to some of the saints" [Job 5:1]; and in 2 Maccabees (15:12) we see that a saint prayed for the entire Jewish people. Nor can one say that the saints pray just for others and not for themselves, for we read: "O Sovereign Lord... how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?" (Rev 6:10). Further, the saints ask questions: for they will be equal to the angels (Mt 22:30), and the angels question: "Who is the King of glory?" (Ps 24:8), and "Who is this that comes from Edom?" (Is 63:1). Therefore, the saints do question.

Two points can be made in answer to this. The time of glory can be considered in two ways: the time of the beginning of glory, and the time of its full completion. The time of the beginning of glory lasts until the day of judgment: for the saints receive glory in their soul, but something still remains to be received, that is, the glory of the body for each one, and the completion of the number of the elect. Consequently, till the day of judgment the saints can both ask for things and question, but not about what pertains to the very essence of beatitude. The time of fully complete glory is after the day of judgment, and after this nothing is left to be asked for, and nothing left to be known. It is about this that he says, In that day, of consummated glory, you will ask nothing of me.

The observation about the angels asking questions is true in his way: they do ask about the mysteries of the humanity of Christ and the incarnation, but they do not question about the divinity.

2141 Now he promises them an opportunity to ask. This is related to the above in two ways. According to Chrysostom, this refers to the time of the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. (In Ioannem hom., 79, ch. 1; PG 59, col. 428; cf. Catena Aurea, 16:23-25.) It is like saying: It is true that in that day of the resurrection and of the Holy Spirit that you will not ask me; yet you will have my help, because you will ask the Father, to whom you have access through me, in my name.

Augustine explains it the other way. "In that day," of my glory," you will ask nothing of me"; but in the meantime, during your sorrowful pilgrimage, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you. So according to this explanation, if you ask anything of the Father, does not refer to "in that day," but to what precedes that day. (Tract. in Io., 102, ch. 2, col. 1896-7.)

2142 Our Lord lays down seven conditions for good prayer.

The first is that spiritual goods should be sought, when he says, " If you ask anything." For what is entirely earthly, even though it is something in itself, is nothing when compared to spiritual goods: "I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her" (Wis 7:8); "I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void" (Jer 4:23). But an objection: In Matthew (6:11), our Lord teaches us to ask for temporal goods: "Give us this day our daily bread." I answer that a temporal good asked for in relation to a spiritual good is then something.

The second is that it be made with perseverance; as to this he says, If you ask, with perseverance: "They ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Lk 18:1); "Pray constantly" (1 Thess 5: 17).

Thirdly, we should pray in harmony with others; he says, if you, in the plural, ask: "If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven" (Mt 18:19). Thus the Gloss says, about Romans (c 16), that it is impossible for the prayers of many not to be heard. (Gloss.)

Fourthly, it should arise from an affection like that of a child for its parents, as he says, the Father. One who asks out of fear does not ask a father, but a master or an enemy: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Mt 7:11).

The fifth conditions is that it be made with piety, that is, with humility: - "He will regard the prayer of the humble and will not despise their petitions" [Ps 102:17] - with confidence that it will be granted - "Let him in ask in faith, with no doubting" (Jas 1:6) - and it should be made correctly - "You as and do not receive, because you ask wrongly" (Jas 4:3). In regard to this he says, in my name, which is the name of the Savior, in which name one asks when asking for things pertaining to salvation, and when asking in that way by which one can attain salvation: "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

The sixth condition is that prayer be made for an appropriate time, so he says, he will give. One should not stop praying if one does not immediately receive; it will be given to us even if it is postponed till a better time, so as to increase our desire: "You give them their food in due season" (Ps 145:15). 

Seventh, one should ask for himself. Thus he says, to you, because sometimes prayers for others are not heard because the demerits of those we ask for stand in the way: "Do not pray for this people" (Jer 7:16); "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people" (Jer 15:1).

2143 Now he encourages them to act with the confidence he has given them: first, he reminds them of what they lacked in the past; secondly, he encourages them to advance in the future, ask.

2144 What they lacked in the past was not asking; thus he says, Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name. But this seems to conflict with Luke (9:1) where it says that Christ gave the twelve "power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases"; and the same in Matthew (10:1). Now they did these things by praying. Therefore, they did ask something in the name of Christ, especially because the disciples said: "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name" (Lk 10:17).

We must say, then, that this can be explained in two ways. First, Hitherto you have asked nothing, that is nothing great, in my name. For to ask for cures for the body is a small matter compared to the great things they would accomplish by their prayers; nor had they yet received the Spirit of adoption to make them aspire to spiritual and heavenly things. And if you object that they did ask for something great when they asked before, "Lord, show us the Father" (14:8), I answer that they were not asking the Father (which is what Christ is talking about here), but only Christ as man, trusting that as a mediator he would show them the Father.

Another explanation: if you ask anything of the Father in my name. Up to now they had not asked in his name because they did not have a complete knowledge of the name of Christ.

2145 When he says, ask, and you will receive, he is urging them to make progress, that is, they are now to ask: "Ask, and it will be given you" (Mt 7:7). Ask, I say, and you will receive, that is, what you are asking for, that your joy may be full: "The seventy returned with joy, saying, 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name'" (Lk 10:17). The phrase that your joy may be full can be taken to indicate the reason why their prayers are heard. Or, it can point to what they are praying for, so the meaning is: ask, and you will receive, and what you should ask for is that your joy may be full.

2146 Note that the object of joy is a good that is desired. Since desire is a kind of movement toward a good, and joy is rest in that good, a person has joy when he rests in a good, now possessed, to which his desire was moved. And one's joy is proportionate to the good possessed. There cannot be full joy in a created good because it does not give complete rest to man's desires and yearnings. Our joy will be full when we possess that good in which all the goods we can desire are found superabundantly. This good is solely God "who satisfies our desire with good things" [Ps 103:5]. Therefore he says, ask this, that your joy may be full, that is, ask to enjoy God and the Trinity, as Augustine says, and no joy is greater: "You will fill me with joy with your face" [Ps 16:11]. (De Trin., 1, ch. 11; cf. Catena Aurea, 16:23-28.) And why is this? Because "all good things came to me along with her," that is, with the contemplation of divine wisdom (Wis 7:11).