adoro

Ik aanbid met eerbied U, O verborgen God,

die hier onder tekens, ja, waarlijk Zich verschuilt:

aan U onderwerpt zich al en geheel mijn hart,

want U schouwend weet ik dat het echt niets vermag.

Oog en smaak en tastzin worden in U misleid,

het geloof steunt veilig slechts enkel op 't gehoor;

ik geloof al wat Gods Zoon steeds verkondigd heeft,

niets is meer waar dan het woord van de Waarheid zelf.

Op het kruis ging slechts Uw heilige Godheid schuil,

hier blijft echter ook Uw mensheid voor ons verhuld;

toch belijdend beide met een rotsvast geloof,

vraag ik wat berouwvol U de rover verzocht.

Ik zie niet Uw wonden, Heer, als eens Thomas deed,

toch wil ik belijden U als mijn enige God;

doe in U geloven mij, altijd méér en meer,

doe op U mij hopen, Heer, U beminnen slechts.

O gedachtenismerkmaal van des Heren dood,

Levend Brood,dat aan de mens het echte leven geeft,

geef mij dat ook mijn geest in U zijn leven vindt,

geef hem als zijn zoetheid steeds, U te smaken zeer.

Pelikaan vol goedheid, O, Jesus onze Heer,

reinig mij, onreine, door Uw gans zuiver Bloed,

waar een enkele druppel van zelfs verlossen kan

heel het wereldrond rondom van de zondigheid.

Jesus die, gesluierd, ik hier nu vol aanschouw,

moge lessen, bid ik U, zich mijn grote dorst;

dat ik, ongesluierd, ziend Uw vol aangezicht,

zalig zij door 't schouwen van Uw heerlijkheid. 

Amen.

~Th.v.Aquino~

capestrano 2-

kunst en religie geven ons inzicht
in een heel andere geschiedenis
dan wij op school leerden

- wordt vervolgd -

capestrano 1-

Johannes van Capestrano
heilige van de dag

indrukwekkend !

pius x

mooi portret
warm

inzet x

Ours is not a battle without hope.

He who does not hope, abandons the struggle. And he who continues to fight, does so because animated by hope.

Hope is the virtue which illuminates the darkness of the night. In the night, we do not see and the object of hope is precisely that which our senses do not see, because hope is only practised when we cannot see that for which we are hoping. For this reason, we only practise the virtue of hope on this earth: in Heaven, we will possess what we now hope for. In this sense, he who hopes is similar to he who possesses. In hoping, man already possesses, imperfectly on earth, what he will one day possess perfectly in eternity.

The Council of Trent teaches that hope is a duty of the Christian: “In Dei auxilio firmissimam spem collocare et reponere omnes debent.” Given that, as the theologians say, one cannot hope without faith, the primary virtue of the militant Church is the mixture of faith and hope which is called trust, which means believing in and hoping for blessings which our senses tell us are most distant. St Paul defines confidence as “gloriam spei”, “the glory of hope” [Heb. 3:6] and St Thomas defines it as “spes roborata ex aliqua opinion”, “hope strengthened by solid belief”.

Hope fortifies our actions and renders our prayers effective. It is a fine thing to fight in defence of a Church, whose dazzling beauty is concealed, but which we love, because we believe and hope in it. If in Heaven there will be no hope, because we will possess the thing hoped for, in hell there will be eternal despair, because one will suffer the absence of the thing in which one has not believed and not hoped for.

What we believe and hope for is none other than God and all the blessings which bring us close to Him. We must therefore repeat, with St Claude de la Colombière: “Je Vous espère Vous-même de Vous même, ô mon Créateur.”

We can lose everything, except trust. We trust not only that we will receive a reward for good works but also, according to St Augustine, for performing these good works with the help of God. We trust in the struggle until victory because we hope in it and because the object of our hope is God himself.

We hope not only one day to possess it in heaven, but to glorify it on earth, fighting for the social Kingdom of Jesus and Mary, for the realisation of which He leads us to hope. The Lord ignites hope in the hearts of those who hope in Him; and he who hopes will do so because he has already received the gift of hope.

An immense trust, nourished by the promise of Fatima...

animates our struggle in the battle on earth...

which is pleasing to Heaven


~bron~

inzet ix

Today victory appears to be smiling on the devil...

and we can ask ourselves whether this era is coinciding with the era of the Antichrist, the supreme expression of evil in history.

However, if this were the case, we would have to conclude that we are at the end of the world and have reached it while knowing the social reign of the devil, but not the social reign of Christ. Protestants, modernists and their precursors and followers, while acknowledging Christ, deny the Church or, while not denying it, hold it to be invisible, and therefore deny its triumph.

Their notion is that of an Ecclesia spiritualis or invisibilis, reduced to a congregation of the predestined, and an Assembly of saints, destined to be persecuted, without ever, throughout history, being victorious. This generates an eschatology associated with catacombs and a victim mentality, which denies what is called the Constantinian Church and the ideal of the social Kingdom of Christ.

Today many Catholics endorse this theology of Protestant and modernist history. Secularisation is regarded as irreversible, and the Church is reduced to a minority of faithful who abandon attempts to conquer the public domain.

Hence the temptation to believe that we are at the end of the world, we should lay down our arms and take refuge in waiting. We do not fight the world, because we do not believe in the duty to “instaurare omnia in Christo”, to rebuild Christian civilisation on the ruins of the modern world, according to the grand plan of St Pius X.

However, God does not instil into the heart of man unrealisable desires, and the aspiration of so many devout Catholics to the social Kingdom of Christ is destined to be realised in history before the end of time.

This means we are NOT living in the times of the Antichrist, but merely in an anti-Christian era, on which St John writes: “Nunc Antichristi multi facti sunt” [1 John 2:18]. An era in which many are testes, or according to St Gregory the Great, “testiculi” of the Antichrist, without being the Antichrist.

The primary evidence for this lies in the battle we are waging against the Revolution in order to reinstate the social Kingdom of Jesus and Mary, which will be simply the triumph of the Holy Church in society and men’s hearts.

We fight... 

because God has placed a love of the fight in our hearts.


~bron~

inzet viii

In the book of the Apocalypse...

St John speaks of the abyss of which Satan is king [Ap. 9:11]

because he holds the keys to it [ivi 9:1]; when he opened the gates to unleash his henchmen [handlangers] on the world “smoke rose from the shaft as smoke rises from a great furnace, until the sun and the air were darkened.” [ivi 9:2] Demons and infernal vapours arose from hell, spread throughout the earth, penetrated the temple of God. The smoke of Satan anaesthetised, before producing death.

And yet the gates of hell will not prevail, because the gates of Heaven will also be thrown wide, and from them will emerge torrents of grace which purify the air and awaken the sleeping, giving them the strength to fight. The strength of grace reaches us through the sacraments, through the Blessed Virgin Mary, and through the innumerable actual graces we receive and to which we are equal.

From the gates of Heaven also now pour out onto the earth legions of angels in combat with demons. While it is true, as declared by St Thomas, that “all physical things are governed by the Angels”, this means that everything which surrounds us, everything which happens, is governed by the Angels, present at every moment and in every place, protagonist of the divine plans, guides in the struggle against the devil, the world and the flesh in which we engage every day.

The two cities, made up of Angels and men, are always and everywhere close on earth and their clash is therefore continuous and universal. Between them there is no possible compromise. For as long as blood continues to flow, we believe we are at peace. In reality, we are at war.

The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius remind us of the militant attitude of the Christian, called upon to choose from two banners, simply the two cities referred to by St Augustine. St Ignatius and St Augustine merely expound the Gospel maxim that “no-one can serve two masters or he will hate the one and love the other, or vice versa” [Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13].

Our lives are but a moment in this struggle, the story of a relentless war between the servants of the order of God and the followers of infernal chaos. However, St Hildegard of Bingham properly writes that rationality, the highest prerogative of spiritual souls “consists in the possibility of choosing between two sides, embracing the side chosen and rejecting its opposite, because one cannot, in one choice, embrace two conflicting things at the same time.”


~bron~

inzet vii

The Revolution is satanic in essence...

because it aims to undo the work of the creation and Redemption...

to build the social Kingdom of the devil, a hell on earth which foreshadows that of eternity, just as the social Kingdom of Christ also foreshadows the kingdom of the celestial paradise.

It is the truth of faith: demons exist, they fight men, they tempt and at times invade them. Satan’s primary activity is temptation. The devil insinuates, instigates, induces us to sin. He is, at least indirectly, in this sense the cause of our sins. Jesus Christ himself experienced this act of the tempter, who said to him: “All these things I will give you if you prostrate yourself before me and adore me.” [Mt. 4:9]

The mystical Body of Christ rests on two pillars.

Its visible structure, whose leaders are the Pope, the Vicar of Christ.

And its invisible structure, which is made up of the saints. Of which Our Lady is the model and epitome, who can also be defined as the “Vicar of Christ”, because of the authority which is not visible, but invisible,  exerted over the truly devout, who are the heart of the Church. 

The primary work of the devil is to conquer both the visible and invisible leaders of the Mystical Body of Christ: the authorities which guide the Church, and the saints who profess and live the Truth.

-

The temptation for men who represent the visible Church, is power.

The devil suggests that they serve not the Church, but their own ambitions, to satisfy their own cupidity.

Yet the souls to whom the devil most clings, are those called to sainthood.

Satan seeks out in particular those who, like himself, have received most graces from God. The seduction consists in convincing those souls that the good which they do, is the fruit of their own strength and their own merit. Leading them to forget that all the good they perform is accomplished in them by God.

To these souls, the tempter offers the gratification of gifts they have received, to change them from the humble to the proud and, where this is not possible, tempt them not to aim for the utmost good, which is perfection, but content themselves with the lesser good, which is frequently an evil, substituting the rough way of the Cross with an accommodating spirituality, which renounces heroism.

Satan prefers to conquer men of the Church rather than the laity, and from among the men of the Church, those who have the highest vocation; to lose a pure and generous soul, to lose a saint, to lose a bishop, to lose a Pope... these are Satan’s greatest conquests! 

This requires the highest level of seduction possible, which consists in offering his victim not vulgar material goods, but alternative spiritual goods, appealing to man’s desire for the absolute. As testified in his work Exorcism, Leo XIII saw the throne of abomination and godlessness, positioned even “ubi sedes beatissimi Petri et Cathedra veritatis ad lucem gentium constituta est.”


~bron~

inzet vi

To the Lord who says of himself “I am He who is” [Ex.3:14]...

Satan, leader and animator of the Revolution, shrieks: “There is nothing beyond me and I hate myself because I am.” The devil wishes to precipitate [versnellen] the creation of nothingness and cast himself into nothingness. The mysterium iniquitatis is the mystery of the urge of evil towards nothingness, without the ability to reach that goal.

If this total suicide could be accomplished, the Revolution would have prevailed over God, since annihilation is the supreme act of dominion, possible only for God, but also because evil exists only as the privation of good, and without the good it cannot exist, just as disease cannot exist without the body of the diseased person attacked. Death signifies the end not only of the diseased person, but also of the disease.

This is why the journey of the Revolution towards nothingness cannot achieve its purpose, namely the radical and definitive destruction of the Church and Christian civilisation. The good which remains, and which the Revolution needs to survive, is the germ of its defeat.

We perceive this principle in history...

where God always uses a small number of the truly faithful... 

to achieve the grand return of the truth and the good. 

An eminent biblical scholar, Mons. Salvatore Garofalo, has devoted an exhaustive study on the prophetic notion of the “Remainder of Israel”, in which he shows this concept to be the cornerstone of the prophetic tradition. This principle is expressed as: residuum revertetur. In fact, God wishes to make use of the weak and the small before men, and defeat the powerful.

The self-destructive march of the Revolution...

is destined to shatter against a remnant of truth and good which is the principle and prerequisite of its defeat. Where there is a candle which burns, light shines, with greater or lesser intensity, depending on the flame of love which consumes it. The, albeit minimal, remnant of light which shines in the night contains in itself the irresistible force of dawn, the potential of a new day as the sun rises.

Light penetrates, illuminates, warms and revives, as does the good, by nature communicable, fertile and extensive. Evil is by nature sterile and barren. The drama of evil is this: it cannot extinguish the final remnant of the good which survives.

Evil can certainly be propagated. However, its strength is not intrinsic, but extrinsic. It is propagated through the actions of the wicked, men and demons, and imposes itself through cunning and violence, not through the peaceful and conquering force of the truth and the good. It is in this sense a “nihil armatum”. 

Jesus says “I am the light of the world”...

“He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” [John 8:12]

The devil wishes to extinguish the light of the world, plunge the world in darkness, in the image of his kingdom. But darkness does not contain in itself the strength to defeat the light entirely and definitively, because it is from the light that darkness draws its existence.

The infernal world is the world of dark chaos, expressed in the malformed creatures sculpted on the outside of mediaeval cathedrals and the grotesque figures depicted by Hieronymus Bosch.

The image of Heaven cannot be portrayed in a painting. Perhaps only a Gothic or Romanesque cathedral can give us a distant reflection. If a cathedral burns, this means hell has penetrated it, because the language of symbols does not, even in the twenty first century, lose its expressive force.


~bron~

inzet v

Yet even this nihilistic dream is of early date.

In the period when Clootz and Grégoire were presenting their utopias...

the Marquis de Sade [1740-1814], secretary of the notorious Jacobin section of the Pikes, revealed the true objective of the Revolution in his pamphlet entitled Frenchman, greater effort is needed if you wish to be Republicans, in which he celebrated the apotheosis of evil and the dissolution of all moral standards,

Before de Sade...

the theoretician of the metaphysics of dissolution was Dom Léger-Marie Deschamps [1716-1774], an atheist Benedictine monk, who secretly influenced Diderot and the French Encyclopaedists.

His manuscripts were discovered almost a century after his death, and first published in Bolshevik Russia in 1930. The Russian scholar Igor Safarevic and the Polish academic Bronislaw Baczko emphasise the significance of these writings, which deify [vergoddelijken] evil.

Deschamps proclaimed a general equality in which everything coincides with nothingness: “All beings flow out and into one another and all persons are merely different aspects of a single universal race.” Pantheism coincides with nihilism, because everything is nothing and everything must make itself nothing. Nothingness is the only rigorous antithesis of being. Anticosmism, which is the negation and annihilation of every reality, is manifested in the dissolution of every ethic, every right, every society, every family, every propriety.

If we apply to our own times a celebrated page written by Mons. Jean-Jacques Gaume [1802-1879], we can say: “If, stripping the mask from Revolution, you will ask: Who are you? I will tell you: I am not what people believe. Many speak of me and very few know me. I am neither the financial oligarchies, nor American globalism, nor the Russian Moloch, nor the Chinese Dragon. I am not the Islamic migrants who invade Europe to conquer it, nor the sodomites who demonstrate against the family in order to destroy it. I am neither Marco Pannella nor Emma Bonino. I am neither Obama nor Soros. These people are my children, they are not me. These things are my works, they are not me. These men and these things are short-lived and I am a permanent state. 

I am hatred for every religious and social order which man has not established and in which he is not king and God together. I am the proclamation of human rights against the rights of God. I am the philosophy of rebellion, the politics of rebellion, the religion of rebellion: I am the armed negation (nihil armatum); I am the foundation of the religious and social state underlying the will of man instead of the will of God! In a word, I am anarchy, because I am God dethroned and man instead of Him. This is why I call myself Revolution, that is overthrow.”

Nihil armatum: this definition captures the essence of the Revolution, which is not nothingness, because if it were nothingness, it would not exist. But it is an organised march, an armed march towards nothingness, guided by the dark power spoken of so frequently...

in the letters of St Paul [Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:13; Lk. 22:53].

~bron~

inzet vi

While St Augustine is the genius who, in unequalled depth, describes the antithesis between the two cities, no one except Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira [1908-1995], in his succinct [beknopt] work ´Revolution and Counter-Revolution´, has better described the history of the struggle between the Civitas Dei and Civitas diabuli in recent centuries. 

For the Brazilian thinker...

a revolutionary process exists whose origins date from the XIV to the XV centuries...

when Europe was experiencing a profound change in the spirit of the age.

The philosophy of pleasure associated with humanism triggered the Protestant religious Revolution which, excluding apparent divergences, was one with humanistic beliefs. The French Revolution welcomed the liberal and egalitarian tendencies of humanism and Protestantism, and introduced them to the political and social spheres. The Communist Revolution spread throughout the world and led the egalitarian hatred of the French Revolution to its ultimate consequences.

-

A new worldwide civilisation was to have replaced Christian civilisation. During the French Revolution, on 17 June 1790, a Prussian revolutionary, Anacharsis Cloots [1755-1794], presented himself to the Assembly as “the orator of the human race”, heading a deputation of persons of different languages and nationalities, announcing the construction of a universal Republic which would embrace all peoples of the earth.

Another protagonist of the Revolution, Abbott Henri Grégoire [1750-1831], demanded, in the name of universal equality, abolition of the “aristocracy of the skin”. On 4 June 1793, a masquerade was organised and a delegation of black men and women infiltrated the Convention, preceded by a banner depicting a mulatto and a negro, armed with a pike, who wore the Phrygian cap, the symbol of the Revolution. “Citizens – announced Grégoire, amid the enthusiasm of Convention delegates – there still exists an aristocracy: that of the skin. You will make it disappear.”

The utopia of ethnic mixing is therefore of early date and an expression of the egalitarian pantheism of the French Revolution, which claimed that they would destroy every inequality, whether social or in nature, to create an imitation of the medieval Christian Republic.

It was only after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 that this utopia was apparently realised, with the (almost contemporaneous) advent of the dictatorship of the Communist proletariat, the National Socialist Third Reich and the League of Nations, later renamed the United Nations Organisation.

However, all these projects failed miserably.

-

The dream of building the “novus ordo saeculorum”, emerging at the beginning of the XX century, was replaced by an opposing dream, that of destruction: the Kingdom of Chaos. The New World Order is in reality worldwide chaos, which today has the colours of the Amazonia, the happy paradise in which indigenous peoples pass on the wisdom of the cult of nature, and the Earth Charter replaces the Declaration of Human Rights, now superseded by the tribal phase of the fourth and fifth Revolutions.

The Amazonia has been elevated from a physical territory to a theological place, the object par excellence of geolatry, the cult offered to Mother Earth which embraces all creatures, animate or inanimate, where everything coexists and nothing is, because, once every inequality is eliminated, nothingness is revealed as the ultimate secret of the universe.

The metaphysics of the nothing...

is the heart of the new religion.


~bron~

inzet v

The struggle between the two cities...

can be explained not only by the action of Satan...

but also by the original sin passed down by Adam to his descendants. Sin is a hereditary disease. Everyone, after Adam, is born into sin, at any time and in any place. Humanity is therefore diseased, but not dead, because sin inclines the nature of man towards evil, but does not wholly corrupt him. The nature is diseased, but evil does not constitute the essence of the nature.

-

Original sin wounds the soul and body of man...

producing a moral disorder culminating in sin...

and a physical disorder culminating in death. 

However, the gravest consequence of Adam’s sin was not the introduction of the death of the body, but the introduction of the death of the soul, the severance of the sublime relationship which bound God to the rational creature.

Death, disease, suffering, anguish, error, doubt, conflict: all are the outcome of original sin.

Donoso Cortés writes:

“Sin covered heaven with mourning, hell with flames, and the earth with weeds. It brought disease, pestilence, hunger and death to the world. It dug the grave for the most illustrious and populous cities, presided over the destruction of Babylon, the city of the magnificent gardens, Nineveh the magnificent, Persepolis, daughter of the sun, Memphis of the profound mysteries, Sodom the impure, Athens the cradle of art, Jerusalem the ingrate [overdreven gedienstige], Rome the great. 

Sin is responsible for the groans which emerge from the breasts of men, and the tears which drop by drop flow from the eyes of men. Yet the gravest aspect of sin, which no intellect can conceive of and no words express, is that it could rend tears from the most holy eyes of the Son of God, the meek lamb nailed to the cross, burdened with the sins of the world.” 

In the Garden of Olives, “He experienced sadness and agitation, and the horror of the sin was the cause of this extraordinary agitation and sadness. His brow sweated blood, and the spectre of the sin was the cause of this extraordinary sweating of blood. He was nailed to a wooden cross, and it was the sin which nailed him there; it was the sin which gave Him agony, the sin which gave him death.”

However, the origin of the mysterium iniquitatis was not the sin of Adam and Eve, but the sin of Lucifer. The disobedience of Adam and Eve was in fact under the influence of Satan, but no one influenced Satan, whose sin did not merit God’s pardon, unlike that of our progenitors, because Satan was the cause of the sin.

For this reason, if Christ, the new Adam, is the leader of the City of God, it is not Adam, but Lucifer who is the leader of the Civitas diabuli. Therefore, according to the Book of Wisdom: “Invidia diabuli mors intravit in orbe terrarum” [Wisdom 2:24].


~bron~

inzet iv

It is important to emphasise...

that we cannot speak of the devil without speaking of hell.

Earth, purgatory and paradise are places inhabited by souls which make up the Civitas Dei. But members of the Civitas diabuli also inhabit places, which are earth and hell, because for them there is no purgatory. According to Catholic doctrine, hell refers not only to the state of the damned, but also the place where the rebel angels and those who have died in mortal sin are eternally punished.

-

Why do members of the Civitas diabuli speak of the devil...

yet not of hell, except to negate it?

Because he who loves a person tends to speak of them always, for good or evil, and the devil can be spoken of seductively, can be presented as a victim, as a rejected angel who retains his sinister beauty, thereby smoothing the path for his cult.

However, to speak of hell is to describe a place of eternal torment, in itself hideous and repulsive, and evoke the justice of a God who judges infallibly and condemns irrevocably. For this reason, the perpetrators of evil disregard hell, and only speak of it to deny it, or affirm its emptiness.

Father Garrigou-Lagrange states that the denial of hell by Freemasonry is evidence of its existence. Indeed, the fruit reveals the tree. He who hates God not only acknowledges His existence, because if he did not acknowledge Him, he would not fight Him! 

But, in his satanic perversity, also proves the existence of hell. What else are the profanations of the Eucharist, the sinister liturgies which culminate in blasphemies against all that is divine, if not manifestations of a hatred which has its source in hell and the devil?


~bron~

inzet iii

The City of God...

is the Church in its three states: militant, suffering and triumphant.

A spiritual bond brings together, in a single Mystical Body, the faithful who fight on earth, the souls who suffer in purgatory, and the blessed who rejoice in Heaven.  Man is in fact a social being not only in the natural, but also in the supernatural order.

The vital communication of supernatural blessings among members of the three churches is the Communion of Saints.

-

An intimate solidarity also exists among the children of darkness.

The link which binds them is hatred. They hate and detest one another, yet come together in the struggle against Good, as stated in the Psalm: “convenerunt in unum adversus Dominum et adversus Christum eius” [Psalm 2:2].

Father Sebastian Tromp, a Jesuit theologian who collaborated in drafting the Encyclical Mystici Corporis of Pius XII, and in the II Vatican Council was adviser to Cardinal Ottaviani, added an appendix to his treatise Corpus Christi quod est ecclesia to De corpore diabolic, demonstrating, on the basis of scriptural and patristic citations, that the City of Satan assumes the guise of a mystical body of the devil.

In his books entitled Moralia, St Gregory the Great speaks frequently of the corpus diabuli, which is the devil and his followers. “Just as the saints are members of Christ, so the ungodly without faith are members of the devil” and “The devil is the father of all the iniquitous, and all the ungodly are members of this leader.”

-

Civitas diabuli...

is not merely a whole made up of errors and moral perversions, but an organised structure. It has dogmas, rights and hierarchies, representing as it does an imitation of the true Church. It is a counter-church, defined in the Apocalypse as the “synagogue of Satan” [Ap.2:9; 3:9].

Tertullian describes the rituals used in the second century, revealing that, even at that time, a diabolical parody of Christian mysteries was in existence. St Irenaeus speaks of the Cainites, who heralded as liberators the great rebels against God, Cain, Esau and Judas. The seven medieval Gnostics, like the Cathars, considered Cain, and those who built the tower of Babel, the inhabitants of the city of Sodom, to be their precursors.

Freemasonry, which inherits the faith and customs of Gnosticism, formed the visible driving force of the civitas diabuli from the 18th century onwards. No other sect has been the subject of such condemnation from the Church during the last three centuries, of which the Encyclical Humanum Genus of Leo XIII is, to some extent, a compendium.

-

The Mystical Body of Christ and Corpus diabuli are two kingdoms which oppose one another in history, as life and death, good and evil, light and darkness. Their aim is to annihilate one another. The struggle between the two armies is perpetual and implacable [onverbiddelijk], as summarised in these words:

“And I tell you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” [Mt 16:18].

On one side, the Church, which is the Kingdom of Christ.

And on the other an enemy described as “the gates of hell”,

Which will - in vain - make every effort to prevail over the Church.


~bron~

inzet ii

In seeking to throw a little light on the ´Mysterium iniquitatis´...

it is necessary to look back at the first moments of universal history.

In his Encyclical Humanum Genus [20 April 1884]  against Freemasonry, Leo XIII asserts:

“The race of man, after its miserable fall from God, the Creator and the Giver of heavenly gifts, ´through the envy of the devil,´ separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other of those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. 

The one is the kingdom of God on earth. Namely, the true Church of Jesus Christ. And those who desire from their heart to be united with it, so as to gain salvation, must of necessity serve God and His only-begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. 

The other is the kingdom of Satan, in whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents, those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God.”

-

Pope Leo XIII therefore teaches that humanity is divided into two camps, which are in incessant combat: the kingdom of God, consisting of the Church of Christ, and the kingdom of Satan, consisting of followers of the Devil.

The combat is not merely an episode in history, but dates from the first moment of creation of the universe, and will continue until the end of time.

-

Angels were created together with light.

But when God separated light from darkness...

some angels separated themselves from the light, which is God, and plunged into darkness. This is repeated throughout history, and in fact constitutes the mysterium iniquitatis: a mystery impenetrable in itself, because our intelligence is not capable of comprehending either the intimate essence of the Supreme Good, or the profundity of Evil, whose existence is allowed by God, although against His will.

This is an ´unapproachable light´ [1Tim. 6:16], in which God lives. But there is also an unapproachable darkness which the divine light does not illuminate. This is why we say that Satan works in the mystery. Like every mystery, the mystery of evil is beyond the understanding of reason, yet does not contradict it. Through reason illuminated by faith, we can grasp a reflection of light in this mystery which, as St Paul assures us, will be revealed in time [2 Thess. 2:6-8]. Only ´God is light, and in Him there can be no darkness´ [1 John 2:5].

-

To explain this mystery of evil...

Leo XIII refers to the two cities, described by St Augustine in his classic work ´The City of God´ in these words: “Two loves formed two cities: the love of self, reaching even to contempt of God, an earthly city; and the love of God, reaching to contempt of self, a heavenly one.”

The forces of attraction and cohesion which generate and maintain these cities is love!

“Two forms of love have generated two cities: the earthly city, love of self to the extent of disdain of God; the heavenly city, love of God to the extent of disdain of self.” 

The radical choice is between God, to whom humility of heart is intimately joined, and the devil, to whom pride and self-love binds us.

The essence of this encounter is moral, and rooted in human liberty: a choice must be made according to the gravitational pull impressed on our life by love.


~bron~

inzet i

St Augustine’s antithesis...

between the two cities which have fought one another throughout history - the Civitas Dei and the Civitas Diabuli - is the key to interpretation of the Mysterium iniquitatis [2Thess.2:7].

The City of God consists of the Church of Jesus, and the other City of the followers of Satan, who opposes Christ. The two cities fight one another on earth as two armies. Their aim is to annihilate one another, and their encounter is therefore continuous and implacable [onverbiddelijk].

The globalisation of chaos represents the final historical phase of the centuries-old attack waged by anti-Christian forces against the Church and Christian civilisation.


~bron~

hoogleraar

spontaan:
zéér interessant
maar ik mis wel...

tederheid

pestzuil 6-

Olomouc, Tsjechië
1716-1754

Drievuldigheidszuil...

Het barokke monument werd tussen 1716 en 1754 gebouwd ter ere van God.

Het hoofddoel van de bouw was het eren van de katholieke kerk en het geloof. Een belangrijke aanleiding voor het begin van de bouw in 1716 was het einde van de pest die de regio getroffen had tussen 1714 en 1716.

De zuil wordt ook gezien als een uiting van het lokale patriottisme, aangezien alle kunstenaars die gewerkt hebben aan het monument inwoners van Olomouc waren. Daarnaast zijn bijna alle afgebeelde heiligen op een bepaalde manier met de stad verbonden.

In het jaar 2000 is de Drievuldigheidszuil van Olomouc toegevoegd aan de Werelderfgoedlijst van UNESCO. De officiële reden daarvoor is "dat het een van de meest exceptionele voorbeelden is van het summum van de Centraal-Europese barokke artistieke expressie".

~wikipedia~

pestzuil 5-

Linz (Ö)

- 1720 -

Während des Zweiten Weltkrieges...

waren ab 1943 sämtliche Schmuckelemente entfernt und die Wappen zum Schutz in Gips eingebettet. Nach Kriegsende wurde die Säule bis Dezember 1947 wieder komplettiert. Von Juni 2019 bis Mitte 2020 wird die Säule komplett renoviert.


~wikipedia~

pestzuil 4-

Perchtoldsdorf
Österreich
- 1714 -

Bereits um 1706...

wurde durch Pfarrer Maximilian Aunosky die Errichtung einer Pestsäule angeregt.

Nach dem Tod des Pfarrers wurde das Projekt jedoch nicht weiter verfolgt. 1712-13 suchte die Pest – siehe auch Große Pest von 1708 bis 1714 – den Osten Österreichs wiederum heim, dabei wurde Perchtoldsdorf im Gegensatz zu anderen Orten der Umgebung nur wenig geschädigt...

und daraufhin realisierte sein Nachfolger, Johann Daniel Bock, aus Dankbarkeit mittels Spenden der Perchtoldsdorfer und vieler Wiener das Vorhaben. Am 3. November 1713 erfolgte die Grundsteinlegung der Dreifaltigkeitssäule, und im Juni 1714 die Benediktion.


~wikipedia~

pestzuil 3-

Mödling
Österreich
- 1714 -

Am Freiheitsplatz im Zentrum der Stadt, wurde sie zur Danksagung an das Erlöschen der Seuche errichtet, an der im Jahr 1713 90 Menschen starben. Die Inschriftplatten bestehen aus Carrara-Marmor...

Am 21. Mai 1714 wurde durch Kaiser Karl VI. [vader van Maria-Theresia] der Grundstein gelegt.

Und vom Bischof von Nitra Laszlo Adam Graf von Erdődy gesegnet.


~wikipedia~

pestzuil 2-

Klagenfurt am W.

Österreich

- 1680 -

Die 1680 errichtete Säule bestand zunächst aus Holz...

und stand auf dem Heiligengeistplatz, wo sich sowohl das Spital, als auch der älteste Friedhof der Stadt befanden.

Anlass für die Errichtung des Denkmals war der Dank der Landstände und der Bevölkerung für die Verschonung vor der Pest, die durch eine strenge Abschottung der Stadt sowie durch Hygiene-maßnahmen gelang.

Nach der Belagerung und der anschließenden Befreiung Wiens von den Türken [1683] wurde sie bis 1689 durch eine steinerne Ausführung ersetzt, die den Charakter einer Siegessäule erhielt: an der Basis erinnert sie an die Pestzeit, bekrönt wird sie vom besiegten Halbmond, über dem das christliche Kreuz steht.

Nachdem auf dem Heiligengeistplatz für den dort stattfindenden Fischmarkt 1897 eine Halle entstehen sollte, wurde die Säule in westlicher Richtung verschoben, sodass sie inmitten einer kleinen Parkanlage stand.

1965 musste die Dreifaltigkeitssäule erneut ihren Standort wechseln, da im Zuge der Umgestaltung der Innenstadt der Heiligengeistplatz als zentraler Busbahnhof Verwendung fand. Den neuen Standort fand die Säule am Alten Platz, der 1961 zur ersten Fußgängerzone Österreichs umfunktioniert wurde.


~wikipedia~

pestzuil 1-

Halle, Deutschland
- 1455 -

Der mittelalterliche Bildstock [heiligdom]...

wurde zum Dank für Christi Hilfe bei der Überwindung der Pestepidemien von 1449 und 1452 im Jahre 1455 errichtet.

Die Betsäule stand zunächst auf dem Gelände des späteren Leipziger Platzes, der im Areal des heutigen Riebeckplatzes lag, und damit außerhalb der Befestigungsanlagen der Stadt Halle. Dort verlief ehemals die Straße von Magdeburg nach Halle und weiter ins Sächsische. Der Standort lag unweit des städtischen Galgens.

Die Säule diente Wanderern, Fuhrleuten und Delinquenten als Andachts- und Gebetsstätte. Sie wurde 1840 restauriert, 1928 zunächst zum Franckeplatz und 1972 in die Grünanlagen des Universitätsrings – ihrem heutigen Standort – umgesetzt. 2012 wurde die Betsäule grundhaft saniert.

Baulich sind drei Teile erkennbar.

Sie besteht aus einem sich von unten nach oben stark verjüngenden, pyramidenähnlichen Sockel. Darauf befindet sich die große Relieftafel. Sie zeigt die Kreuzigung Christi umgeben von Johannes, Maria und Maria Magdalena.

Auf der anderen Seite ist die Kreuztragung Christi auf dem Weg nach Golgatha abgebildet.

Den Abschluss bildet ein Maßwerkkamm.


~wikipedia~

nieuw? -γ

Voor ons, tot afgelopen donderdag...

was het dictatoriale China ver weg, was Italiës aanpak hysterisch, en waren wij Nederlanders ons nuchtere zelf: handen wassen, in de elleboog niezen, en papieren zakdoekjes gebruiken, meer niet. Later kwam daar geen handen schudden bij. Volgens de richtlijnen van het RIVM, net als bij een gewone griep. Niemand van ons heeft van dichtbij ervaring met het coronavirus, dus een enkeling begon toch maar alvast grote hoeveelheden meel en wc-papier in te slaan, voor het geval dat.

Maar toen de VS donderdagochtend het luchtruim voor Europeanen afsloot, sloeg de stemming volledig om. In de ochtend bevolkten wij nog rustig fabrieken, kantoortuinen, collegezalen en klaslokalen, in de middag werden samenkomsten met meer dan 100 personen afgeraden en werd thuiswerk gestimuleerd.

‘We moeten het samen doen’, verkondigde Rutte. ‘De curve van de pandemie moet worden afgeplat, want de ziekenhuizen en met name de Intensive Care kunnen een piek niet aan’, aldus de NOS. En dat is geen loze dreiging, want IC-artsen in Lombardije hebben al mensen moeten afwijzen wegens plaatsgebrek. Mensen die vervolgens in de eenzaamheid van de quarantaine zijn overleden, en in kleine kring moesten worden begraven.

Dit weekend viel het besluit dat scholen en horeca alsnog allemaal dichtgaan.

De vraag is hoe dwingend een overheid kan, wil of moet zijn.

En hoe economie en welzijn zich tegenover elkaar verhouden.

Bestaat er een middenweg tussen een volledige ‘lock-down’ met politietoezicht en ‘samen doen’ op vrijwillige basis?

En is die middenweg de juiste?

De huidige Corona-epidemie is veel grootschaliger...

en de pestepidemie van Thucydides was veel dodelijker...

maar zijn les - en die van andere auteurs van literaire beschrijvingen van epidemieën: Lucretius, Vergilius, Procopius, Boccaccio, Manzoni, Camus, om er maar een paar te noemen - is dat als puntje bij paaltje komt sommigen met doodsverachting hun leven geven, anderen hamsteren om zich veilig terug te trekken, weer anderen zich uit levensdrift overgeven aan een ‘carpe diem’.

Laten we hopen dat we de curve kunnen ombuigen.

Maar... niemand van ons is immuun, ‘zélfs de vrouw van de Canadese president Trudeau niet’, zoals het Italiaanse journaal RAI3 liet weten. ‘Het virus bereikt al de hogere machtskringen’, kondigde de NRC aan.

Gisteren was het in Amsterdam nog vrij levendig, na de speech van Rutte is het ineens stiller dan op een zomerse zondag. Het afremmen van de samenleving geeft ons in ieder geval tijd om hierbij stil te staan.

Al luisterend naar de merels tijdens deze eerste lentedagen.

Met een beetje minder CO2 in de lucht.


~bron~

nieuw? -β

Loimos... 

is het Griekse woord dat Thucydides voor de epidemie gebruikt [boek II, 47-54].

Pest, pokken, mazelen, tyfus... we weten het niet precies, en het doet er ook niet toe. De ziekte - die uit het Oosten kwam overwaaien - was zeer besmettelijk, en de Atheners stierven bij bosjes. Zelfs aaseters kwamen niet langer bij lijken in de buurt. Strenge leefregels (welke, en door wie opgesteld?) hielpen niet, er was geen medicijn tegen opgewassen, ook orakels bleken geen remedie te bieden.

Tegelijk met de wanhoop, groeide de onverschilligheid voor menselijke normen en goddelijke wetten. Wie meer angst had dan eergevoel, keerde de zieken de rug toe. Lijken lagen onbeweend op straat, of werden op andermans brandstapels gegooid. Wie zijn laatste dagen geteld zag, gaf zich over aan wild genieten. De wetteloosheid [a-nomia] nam toe: ‘Men durfde nu zonder bezwaar zijn eigen genoegens na te jagen, en dingen te doen die men vroeger geheim hield. De mensen zagen immers de onverhoedse ommekeer: rijken die nu onverwacht stierven, mensen die eerst niets hadden bezeten, maar nu ineens over de eigendommen van de rijken beschikten.’ [boek II, 53.1, vert. Wolther Kassies 2013].

Maar wie was genezen, werd meestal geen tweede keer ziek.

En voelde zich onsterfelijk.


~bron~

nieuw? -α

De Griekse geschiedschrijver Thucydides...

schreef zijn Historiën ‘als bezit voor altijd’, opdat de volgende generaties er lering uit zouden kunnen trekken, en de geschiedenis zich niet zou hoeven te herhalen.

Met zijn verslag van de Peloponnesische Oorlog [431-404 v. Chr.] volgde hij de Hippocratische methode: symptomen, diagnose, behandelplan. Zijn uitvoerige beschrijving van de uitbraak van de pestepidemie in 430 v. Chr. geeft weer wat deze pandemie met de Atheense samenleving deed.

Heeft het snel om zich heen grijpende coronavirus een vergelijkbaar ontwrichtend effect op onze samenleving?

~bron~

herstel -3-

Die Pest von Mailand im Jahr 1576 war die Bestrafung...

die für Rom 50 Jahre zuvor der Sacco der Landsknechte gewesen war.

Sie war aber auch eine Gelegenheit zur Reinigung und zur Bekehrung. Karl Borromäus sammelte seine Meditationen in einem Memoriale, in dem er unter anderem schrieb „Stadt Mailand, deine Größe erhob sich bis in den Himmel, dein Reichtum erstreckte sich bis an die Enden der irdischen Welt... Doch plötzlich kommt vom Himmel die Pest, die die Hand Gottes ist, und mit einem Schlag wurde dein Stolz erniedrigt.“ 

Der Heilige war überzeugt, daß alles der großen Barmherzigkeit Gottes zu verdanken war: „Er verwundete und heilte. Er geißelte und pflegte. Er legte seine Hand auf den Stab der Bestrafung und bot den Stab der Hilfe an“

Der heilige Karl Borromäus starb am 3. November 1584...

und ist im Mailänder Dom begraben.

Sein Herz wurde feierlich nach Rom in die Basilika Santi Ambrogio e Carlo in der Via del Corso gebracht, die zu seiner Heiligsprechung erbaut wurde, und wo es noch immer verehrt wird.

Ihm sind unzählige Kirchen gewidmet, darunter die majestätische Karlskirche in Wien, die im 18. Jahrhundert als Votivakt von Kaiser Karl VI. erbaut wurde, der die Stadt während der Pest von 1713 dem Schutz des Heiligen anvertraut hatte.

Während seiner achtzehnjährigen Regierungszeit im Erzbistum Mailand widmete sich Karl Borromäus ebenso energisch der Bekämpfung der Häresie, die er als Seuche des Geistes betrachtete.

Laut dem Heiligen wird „durch keine andere Schuld Gott schwerer beleidigt, von keiner zu größerer Empörung gereizt wie durch das Laster der Häresien, und daß wiederum nichts die Länder und Königreiche mehr ruinieren kann wie diese schreckliche Seuche“.

Der heilige Pius X. zitierte diesen Satz und nannte den heiligen Karl Borromäus ein „Modell der Herde und der Hirten in der Neuzeit, unermüdlicher Verfechter und Berater der wahren katholischen Reform gegen die jüngsten Neuerer, deren Absicht nicht die Wiedereingliederung, sondern die Verformung und Zerstörung des Glaubens und der Bräuche ist“ [Enzyklika Edita saepe vom 26. Mai 1910].

~bron~

herstel -2-

Der heilige Karl Borromeo war überzeugt...

daß die Epidemie „eine vom Himmel gesandte Geißel“ als Strafe für die Sünden des Volkes war, und daß es notwendig war, auf geistliche Mittel zurückzugreifen: Gebet und Buße. Er warf den Zivil-behörden vor, sie vertrauten eher auf menschliche als auf göttliche Mittel. „Hatten sie nicht alle frommen Versammlungen, alle Prozessionen während der Zeit des Jubeljahres verboten? Er war überzeugt, daß das die Gründe für die Bestrafung waren.“

Die Magistrate, die die Stadt regierten, widersetzten sich weiterhin öffentlichen Zeremonien aus Angst, daß die Ansammlung von Menschen die Ansteckung ausweiten könnte. Aber Karl, „der vom göttlichen Geist geleitet wurde, überzeugte sie mit mehreren Beispielen einschließlich dem des heiligen Gregor des Großen, der die Pest gestoppt hatte, die Rom 590 verwüstete“.

Als sich die Pest ausbreitete...

ordnete der Erzbischof daher an, am 3., 5. und 6. Oktober drei große Prozessionen in Mailand abzuhalten, „um den Zorn Gottes zu besänftigen“. 

Am ersten Tag streute der Heilige - obwohl nicht die Große Fastenzeit war - Tausenden von Menschen die sich versammelt hatten, Asche aufs Haupt, und drängte sie zur Buße. Nach der Zeremonie zog die Prozession in die Basilika Sant’Ambrogio. Er selbst stellte sich an die Spitze des Volkes, gekleidet in den violetten Umhang der Fastenzeit, mit einer Kapuze und barfuß. Um den Hals trug er das Seil des Büßers und in der Hand ein großes Kreuz. 

In der Kirche predigte er über die erste Klage des Propheten Jeremias: „Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo“ [Wie einsam sitzt doch jetzt die Stadt, die einst so stark bevölkert war...] und erklärte, daß die Sünden des Volkes die gerechte Empörung Gottes provoziert hätten.

Die zweite vom Kardinal angeführte Prozession...

führte zur Basilika San Lorenzo Maggiore.

In seiner Predigt wandte er den Traum Nebukadnezars auf die Stadt Mailand an, von dem Daniel spricht, „um zu zeigen, daß Gottes Rache über sie gekommen war“.

Die Prozession am dritten Tag führte vom Dom zur Basilika Santa Maria in der Nähe von San Celso. Der heilige Karl trug in seinen Händen die Reliquie des Heiligen Nagels unseres Herrn, die Kaiser Theodosius im vierten Jahrhundert dem heiligen Ambrosius geschenkt hatte, und beendete die Zeremonie mit einer Predigt zum Thema: Peccatum peccavit Jerusalem [Schwer gesündigt hatte Jerusalem, Klagelieder 1,8...]

Die Pest zeigte keine Anzeichen einer Abnahme...

und Mailand schien wie entvölkert zu sein...

da ein Drittel der Bürger ihr Leben verloren hatte, und der Rest in Quarantäne war, oder es nicht wagte, die Häuser zu verlassen.

Der Erzbischof befahl, auf den wichtigsten Plätzen und Kreuzungen rund zwanzig Steinsäulen mit einem Kreuz zu errichten, damit die Bewohner jedes Viertels an Messen und öffentlichen Gebeten teilnehmen konnten, indem sie aus den Fenstern ihrer Häuser schauten.

Einer der Beschützer Mailands war der heilige Sebastian, der Märtyrer, den auch die Römer während der Pest des Jahres 672 angerufen hatten. Der heilige Karl schlug den Stadtvätern von Mailand vor, das dem Märtyrer gewidmete Heiligtum, das zur Ruine verfallen war, wiederaufzubauen, und zehn Jahre lang ein feierliches Festamt zu seinen Ehren zu feiern.

Schließlich hörte die Pest im Juli 1577 auf. Und im September wurde der Grundstein zur neuen Kirche für den heiligen Sebastian gelegt, in der am 20. Januar eines jeden Jahres noch heute eine Messe zum Gedenken an das Ende der Plage gefeiert wird.

~bron~

herstel -1-

Der heilige Karl Borromäus...

der von 1565-1583 Kardinal der Heiligen Römischen Kirche und Erzbischof von Mailand war... Die Hingabe an die Engel begleitete das Leben des heiligen Karl, den Enrique de Guzmán, Graf von Olivares und Botschafter Philipps II. in Rom, „mehr Engel als Mensch“ nannte.

Alles begann im August 1576. 

Mailand feierte die Begrüßung von Don Juan d‘Austria, der sich auf der Durchreise nach Flandern befand, da er zum Statthalter der Niederlande ernannt worden war. Die Stadtoberen waren in Aufregung, um dem habsburgischen Prinzen die höchsten Ehren zu erweisen, aber Karl, seit sechs Jahren Erzbischof der Stadt, verfolgte mit Besorgnis die Nachrichten aus Venedig, Trient, Verona und Mantua, wo die Pest begonnen hatte, Opfer zu fordern. 

Die ersten Fälle in Mailand brachen am 11. August aus, gerade als Don Juan d’Austria Einzug hielt. Der Sieger von Lepanto verließ die Stadt sogleich wieder, gefolgt vom spanischen Statthalter von Mailand, Antonio de Guzmán, Marqués de Ayamonte, während Karl, der sich zur Beerdigung des dortigen Bischofs in Lodi befand, sofort zurückeilte.

In Mailand herrschten Verwirrung und Angst, und der Erzbischof widmete sich ganz der Fürsorge für die Kranken und ordnete öffentliche und private Gebete an. Dom Prosper Guéranger faßt seine unerschöpfliche Wohltätigkeit wie folgt zusammen:

„In Abwesenheit der lokalen Behörden organisierte er das Gesundheitswesen, gründete oder renovierte Krankenhäuser, suchte nach Geld und Vorräten und verfügte vorbeugende Maßnahmen. Vor allem sorgte er für geistliche Hilfe, Hilfe für die Kranken, die Bestattung der Toten, die Verwaltung der Sakramente für die in ihren Häusern eingeschlossenen Bewohner und auch für aufsichtsrechtliche Maßnahmen. Ohne Angst vor Ansteckung bezahlte er persönlich, besuchte Krankenhäuser, leitete die Bußprozessionen und machte alles für alle wie ein Vater und wie ein wahrer Hirte.“

~bron~

verlossing (5)

From starry skies descending

Thou comest, glorious King

A manger [kribbe] low Thy bed

In winter's icy sting [angel]

O my dearest Child most holy

Shudd'ring, trembling in the cold!

Great God, Thou lovest me!

What suff'ring Thou didst bear

That I near Thee might be!

Thou art the world's Creator

God's own and true Word

Yet here no robe, no fire

For Thee, Divine Lord

Dearest, fairest, sweetest Infant

Dire this state of poverty

The more I care for Thee

Since Thou, O Love Divine

Will'st now so poor to be

A gifted musician and composer...

Alphonso Liguori wrote many popular hymns...

and táught them to the people in parish missions.

In 1732, while he was staying at the Convent of the Consolation, one of his order's houses in the small city of Deliceto in the province of Foggia in Southeastern Italy, Liguori wrote the Italian carol "Tu scendi dalle stelle" [From Starry Skies Descending...] in the musical style of a pastorale.

The version with Italian lyrics was based on his original song written in Neapolitan, which began Quanno nascette Ninno [When the child was born...]. As it was traditionally associated with the zampogna [double pipes], or large-format Italian bagpipe [doedelzak], it became known as Canzone di Zampognari [the Carol of the Bagpipers...].

~wikipedia~