TRUE LOVE

"True love grows with difficulties; false love extinguishes. From experience we know that when we endure difficult tests for someone we love, love does not collapse, but it grows. Torrential waters (that is, abundant tribulations) were not able to quench charity (Cant 8, 7). And so, the saints, who endure setbacks for God, strengthen their love with it; it is like an artist, who becomes more attached to the work that costs him the most".

Saint Thomas Aquinas

TRUE DEAD FAITH

Neither Tradition nor Traditionalism is dead faith.

The word of God tells us what true dead faith is: "For even as the body without the spirit is dead: so also faith without works is dead." (James 2:26).

This is what the Word of God teaches us: Whoever does not comply with God’s commandments, even if he believes, because of mortal sin his faith is dead, and if he dies without sanctifying grace, he will perish eternally.

Tradition is not the adoration of ashes, but the PRESERVATION and passing on of the fire.

On Traditionalists, Saint Pius X says:

“The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.” So traditionalism is not what former Protestant pastor Jaroslav Pelikan said: "the dead faith of the living", and who was recently quoted in the papal trip to Canada.

The following words of Pius XII make it very clear:

“Tradition is something very different from a simple attachment to a bygone past; it is the very opposite of a reaction mistrustful of all healthy progress. Etymologically, the word is synonymous with advancement and marching forward, synonymous but not identical… Tradition also signifies a forward march, but a continuous march as well, a movement both brisk and tranquil… By virtue of tradition, the youth, enlightened and guided by the experience of the elders, moves forward with a surer step, and the elders can confidently pass on the plow to stronger hands, to continue the furrow already begun. As the word itself indicates, Tradition is a gift handed down from one generation to another; it is the torch that one runner passes to the hands of the next at each relay, without the race slowing down or coming to a halt. Tradition and progress complement each other so harmoniously that, just as Tradition without progress would be a contradiction in terms, so also progress without Tradition would be a reckless enterprise, a leap into darkness”.

(Pius XII, Speech to the Roman Nobility and Patriarchate, "L'Osservatore Romano", January 20, 1944).

THE TREASURES OF THE HOLY MASS

Oh, what priceless jewels of grace, and virtue! Oh, what excellent gifts does not the holy Mass obtain for us! In the first place, it obtains for us all the spiritual graces and all the goods needful for the soul; as, for example, true sorrow and repentance for sins, victory over temptations, no matter whence they come, whether from evil associations with bad companions, or from the internal promptings of our own rebellious nature. Yes, the holy Mass obtains for us all those aids of grace which we need in order to be able to arise from the slough of sin, to stand erect, and walk onward in the ways of God. It likewise obtains for us innumerable holy inspirations and internal impulses, which dispose us to skake off tepidity, and stimulate us to work out our salvation with a fervour more ardent, with will more prompt, and intention purer and more meritorious. All these aids are accompanied by an inestimable treasure; and, indeed, they are the most efficacious means of obtaining from God the grace of final perseverance, and also a moral certainty of eternal beatitude in the life to come, so far as that certainty is vouchsafed to man during his mortal pilgrimage. 

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice – The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Sacrifice of the Holy Mass

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE

 

SAINT PAUL OF THE CROSS DIXIT

 

PERSEVERANCE AND TRUST IN PRAYER, AND GRATITUDE FOR THE BENEFITS RECEIVED THROUGH IT

I. Only after twenty years of supplications and mortifications, Saint Anne was heard. Do not be discouraged if God does not immediately grant you what you ask for: persevere in prayer; you will get what you ask for, as long as you ask for good things and ask with humility and confidence. “You delay listening, oh Lord, in order to teach us how to ask; You pretend not to hear, so that we persevere” (Saint Anselm). 

II. An angel came to announce to Saint Anne that her prayer had been accepted, and she believed without hesitation. Our Lord himself said that whatever we ask in His name, it will be granted to us (if it is convenient for your soul); and you still doubt it! God can and wants to grant you the graces that you ask for as long as they are good for you; He does not lack the power or the will for this, since He is omnipotent and wants more eagerly to give us the gift of His mercy than we ourselves want to have it. Therefore, pray, but do it with unshakeable faith; ask for what you want for the merits of Jesus Christ. Is it not true that you turn to God only after you have exhausted all worldly means?

III. Saint Anne, grateful for the favor that Heaven had granted her offered to God in the Temple her daughter that He had given her. Have you been grateful for the graces that you have received from Him? Perhaps you have forgotten them, perhaps you have misused them to offend God your benefactor? He who does not appreciate the benefits he has received, is not worthy of receiving new benefits (Saint Bernard).

IV. Pray and ask not only for you. Pray for your neighbor, for your family, for the poor, for the sick and for all those in need. Pray for the Church, for the rulers, for all the children conceived, for the souls of the faithful departed, in short, for everyone. God greatly appreciates the prayers of those who pray not only for themselves.

FRUITS:

Let’s ask as fruits of this meditation: perseverance and trust in prayer, and gratitude for the benefits received through it.

PRAYER

O God, who deigned to grant Saint Anne the grace to give the world the Mother of Your Only Begotten Son, by Your mercy, may the intercession of the one who gave birth to the Mother of our Redeemer help us obtain the fruits of this meditation. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE TEMPTATION by Saint John Mary Vianney

"It is most unfortunate for ourselves if we do not know that we are tempted in almost all our actions, at one time by pride, by vanity, by the good opinion which we think people should have of us, at another by jealousy, by hatred and by revenge. At other times, the Devil comes to us with the foulest and most impure images. You see that even in our prayers he distracts us and turns our minds this way and that. If we wish to hunt these temptations away, we must, as St. Anthony tells us, make use of the same weapons. When we are tempted by pride, we must immediately humble and abase ourselves before God. If we are tempted against the holy virtue of purity, we must try to mortify our bodies and all our senses and to be ever more vigilant of ourselves. If our temptation consists in a distaste for prayers, we must say even more prayers, with greater attention, and the more the Devil prompts us to give them up, the more we must increase their number. The temptations we must fear most are those of which we are not conscious."

Saint John Mary Vianney