My post-Mass meditation usually comes from a 19th century book of Jesuit Meditations. It’s a phenomenal book. The meditation following Sunday’s Mass was about enduring persecutions in light of the Sermon on the Mount. Before we get to the topic at hand, How To Pray for the Enemies of Holy Mother Church, I want to highlight a few other parts of Sunday’s meditation on enduring persecutions.
One of the most astonishing insights the anonymous Jesuit author made is that false-accusations make us already like Christ on earth. It reads: “And besides, is not the glory of being thus made like to the Son of God on earth before we join Him in heaven a sufficient cause for holy joy and pride?”—Practical Meditations p. 443.
Christ’s tells us that even our love on earth is supposed to reflect that of God the Father: But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.—Mt 5:44-45. The anonymous author then comments on the above verse: “What wonderful gentleness is contained in these words! Are they impossible to obey? No, says St. Jerome; for we see them fulfilled in St. Stephen the first martyr and those who followed him… The Apostle says boldly, We are reviled, and we bless; we are blasphemed and we entreat.
But then the old-school Jesuit takes a surprising turn in his meditation on persecutions. Specifically on the topic of pray for one’s enemies, he writes: “The Church, which is the interpreter of Jesus Christ, teaches us in what way we should pray for our enemies, by the words which she has placed in the Litany of Saints: ‘That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to humble the enemies of holy Church: we beseech Thee, hear us.’ We thus ask that by temporal misfortune they may be rendered powerless to do harm, and that, like Saul thrown from his horse and deprived of his sight, they may feel the hand of God, recognize their errors, and humbly implore pardon, that they may be converted, and make a good death.”
Sometimes it seems old-school pious writers promote Christians enduring persecution at the easy-cost of their persecutors going to hell. More careful pious literature often guides the reader to be abandoned to all that happens to them that day, even persecution, provided “no one else be led into sin.” And this is good, because I don’t want to enjoy heaven at the cost of my enemies going to hell.
But notice the Jesuit Meditation above takes it even a step further. Not only do we want the enemies of Holy Mother Church to sneak into heaven by the skin of their teeth at the end of their lives, but we are going to pray that God humble the enemies of Holy Church even here on earth so that they might be like St. Paul and bring glory to God long before the end of their lives.
Notice also in the meditation copied two paragraphs up that that holy 19th century Jesuit (long before the Jesuits went rotten) gives the reason for the traditional Litany of the Saints praying for God to humble the enemies of Holy Mother Church: It is precisely that God may send them “temporal misfortune they may be rendered powerless to do harm, and… that they may be converted.” There is also a very deep sense of supernatural hope in the author’s words insofar as he really believes and sees that God loves the enemies of the Catholic Church enough to send them “temporal misfortune” for the sake of their salvation.
Following Trump turning his head just as a bullet was going to take it off this weekend, I was again reminded that God is in control not only of ecclesiastical history, but even secular history. I am not saying Trump is a saint, but the leftists who hate him were clearly humbled in their failed assassination attempt. This was not only for Trump’s conversion, but even for the conversion of those who tried to kill him.
Even though the leftists who tried to kill Trump will probably not convert, we must remember stranger things have happened. (The account of Saul turning into Paul a few paragraphs above is a good example.) And even if they don’t convert, we should remember this: If God still loves this stinky country by saving Trump’s life on the anniversary of Fatima, then we clearly have to remember God loves His Catholic Church with even greater specificity.
We should genuinely pray the modernists convert before they go to hell. But even if they don’t, we must recognize the tremendous good that God has brought out of evil. Modernism first came on the scene about 125 years ago. Then, the 1960s was it’s coming-out party. Finally, the Vatican-based events of 2012/2013 put the heresy of modernism into overdrive over the past 12 years.
In light of this, let’s look at three miracles of Divine Providence over the past decade:
1) More people have been led to the Traditional Latin Mass by the current Vatican apparatus than even done by the saintly Archbishop Lefebvre. (That is God using his enemies for tremendous good!)
2) God is converting unlikely lay people (sometimes famous ones like Candace Owens and Eva Vlaardingerbroek) even as clergy make a mockery of the Catholic faith all over the world. This has to be a miracle of grace that high profile people convert amidst high-profile scandals on morals and doctrine.
3) The exposition of modernism (that was hard to detect for some from 1960 to 2013) is now in full exposition in all its ugly apostasy, especially over the past decade for anyone who follows Church news.
Sometime in the next 100 years, the modernists will be humbled fully, even here on earth. Why? Because God always wins, even on earth before we get to the topic of heaven and hell. I don’t know if that triumph will be unto the modernists’ salvation or damnation (even though God wills the former.) I don’t know if the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will signal the Sixth Age of the Church or the General Judgment. But I do know from Sunday’s Jesuit Meditation and Saturday’s failed assassination attempt against Trump that no one will escape God or His righteousness. As Fr. Lacordaire once wrote, “If I were condemned merely by God’s justice, then I could still flee to his love. But if I have rejected His love, then where could I turn?”
Let us pray sincerely (not in a condescending way) but genuinely pray that the enemies of Holy Mother Church (within and without) turn to God’s love while here on earth (even if it be through God calling them through great sufferings) so they may not answer to His justice forever in the afterlife.
I am posting more Life Updates these days and thanks to all those who have decided to donate. I hope to build a real hermitage in the next five years.