Catholic Potpourri

How to imitate him today - Pray one decade of the Rosary for those trapped in error, resentment, or fashionable unbelief. - Read one page of the Catechism, St. Thomas Aquinas, or a trusted Catholic source before arguing online. - Refuse lazy polemics. Name the error clearly, but do not let contempt enter the soul. - Put truth into one concrete act: teach a child, correct a falsehood, invite someone to prayer, or return to a duty long postponed. Quick facts (for sharing) - St. Dominic was born in Caleruega, Castile, around 1170 - He founded the Order of Preachers, commonly called the Dominicans - His sons include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great, St. Vincent Ferrer, and many other great defenders of Catholic truth - His apostolate was especially ordered against the Albigensian heresy in southern France - His feast is kept on August 4 in the traditional Roman calendar

Prayer to St. Dominic St. Dominic, preacher of truth and servant of Our Lady, obtain for us a zeal that is clean, disciplined, and charitable. Teach us to love souls enough to defend them from error, and to love truth enough to study it before speaking in its name. Make us men of the Rosary, men of doctrine, men of penance, and men of apostolic courage. May our words be governed by Christ, our minds formed by the Church, and our battles offered for the salvation of souls. St. Dominic, light of the Church and father of preachers, pray for us. Amen.

August marks the 90th anniversary of Communist terrorists in Spain staging an 'execution' of Jesus Christ The Monumento al Sagrado Corazón was blown up by the Communists as a demoralisation tactic against the country's Catholics @CatholicArena

August 9th, 1945 The home of Christianity in the East was obliterated in seconds when an Atomic Bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The city had a long and mystical relationship with the Catholic faith since 1549, since Saint Francis Xavier arrived at Kagoshima in Japan. The great Jesuit brought with him teachings of Christ and the Catholic faith. The initial years of Japanese Christianity were a success and brought many baptisms and conversions. The Jesuits continued the success they experienced in other areas into the city of Nagasaki. So prolific were they in inspiring the Nagasaki people to follow Christ that the area became known as 'Little Rome' The Japanese converted to Catholicism in droves, estimates state that 130,000 had converted by 1579 It was at that time the largest non European ruled Christian nation. The Jesuits, joined by Franciscans and Dominicans, won over locals Domestic tensions would soon impinge upon this success A ban on the Jesuits in 1587 arose from Japanese native Toyitomi Hideyoshi, hoping to stamp out the influence of Christianity and the Jesuits in particular, upon the Japanese. Incidents like the San Felipe, where it was alleged Jesuits were a precursor to invasion, only made the situation worse In 1597, the Japanese church began the first of its many sufferings, when executions took place of the men who became the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki. Like Our Lord, these men were crucified and pierced with spears In 1615, Christianity was completely prohibited from Japan and missionaries were ordered to leave. Many stayed, even though persecutions followed. On September 10th 1622, 56 Christians were burned alive or beheaded at Nagasaki The following centuries were equally bleak for Christians in Japan Many tried to live their faith in secret but were forced to trample on an image of Christ or Mary once a year to prove that they were not secret Christians Despite their great suffering and lacking priests to say Mass, the underground Church of Nagasaki saw Christians keep their faith from generation to generation In 1865, after Japan had been reopened to non natives, a French priest named Bernard Petitjean was approached by some of those remnant Christians One of them whispered that she believed as he did and asked to see an image of the Virgin Mary. The priest was stunned to find that they'd baptised their children for centuries and kept the faith Most of the hidden Christians of that area were from the Village of Urakami In thanksgiving for the Lord's presence, they decided to build a Cathedral on the grounds of the land where they had been forced to trample on Our Lady's image. The Church of the Immaculate Conception that was built there was the biggest in East Asia The Cathedral was completed in 1925, a sign of hope for Christians leading in to the future. By 1945, the majority of Japan's blossoming Catholic Church lived in Nagasaki After 250 years of exile, Japanese Christians finally had reasons for optimism August 9th 1945, as local Catholics prepared for the Feast of the Assumption, the pilots of the Boxscar were instructed to look for the spire of the Urakami Cathedral as they dropped the 'Fatman' bomb Under orders from Harry Truman, a Freemason, the 2nd Atom Bomb in 3 days dropped. The destruction was unimaginable Fulton Sheen would later associate the viciousness of the atomic bomb attacks with the moral disorder of the world afterwards, seeing it has having opened up a new system where ends justified the means in all circumstances and man was capable of using technology to inflict hell on Earth The bombing in Nagasaki happened at 11.02 am as many attended Mass In the death toll -8,500 of the 12,000 Christians - 3 separate orders of nuns - An entire Catholic school There were stories of nuns singing as they made their way through the streets after the blast, many dropping dead on the street as they did so Christians now make up less than 1% of the Japanese population @CatholicArena

St. Augustine wrote that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. For Augustine, keeping death in mind strips away the temporal illusions and that earthly things can never fully satisfy a heart made for heaven, refocusing our gaze on what is eternal. St. Alphonsus Liguori: “You are a creature of time, but you are destined for eternity. Make good use of the present, for it passes quickly and will never return.”

✝️ On August 6, 1456, Catholic forces repelled the Ottomans at Belgrade on the Feast of the Transfiguration. John of Capistrano, leading 2000 peasant crusaders, charged the Ottoman lines, crying: “The Lord, who began the work, will see it through to the end.” Paralyzed by fear, the 5000 Ottoman troops fled, carrying their wounded in 140 wagons. Upon learning of the rout, the deaths of his commanders, and the abandonment of all equipment, Sultan Mehmed II tried to take poison but was stopped by his men. According to Pope Callixtus III, this siege “decided the fate of Christendom.” The seemingly impossible victory so lifted European morale that the Pope established August 6, the day of Belgrade’s triumph, as the universal Feast of the Transfiguration, in memory of the victory God granted over the Muslim armies. 🕊️ @MemoriaNatio

Clovis’ prayer as recorded by Gregory of Tours: O Jesus Christ, you who as Clotilde tells me are the son of the Living God, you who give succor to those who are in danger, and victory to those accorded who hope in Thee, I seek the glory of devotion with your assistance: If you give me victory over these enemies, and if I experience the miracles that the people committed to your name say they have had, I believe in you, and I will be baptized in your name. Indeed, I invoked my gods, and, as l am experiencing, they failed to help me, which makes me believe that they are endowed with no powers, that they do not come to the aid of those who serve. It's to you I cry now, I want to believe in you if only I may be saved from my opponents

The Battle that converted the Franks When Clovis the First fought against the Alamaannic Tribe in the battle of Tolbiac his army suffered terrible losses, convinced that his gods had abandoned him he turned to the God of his wife, the Christian God He prayed for a victory In return he would convert to Christianity Upon finishing his prayer the Alamaani fled after their leader was killed by an axe and were defeated Clovis l was Baptized and became the First King of France

The oldest known Marian Prayer: the Sub Tuum Praesidium Some protestants may claim that the Veneration of Mary only started when the Romans adopted Christianity But this is proven false when you see that this prayer dates to 250-300 Anno Domini, over 80-120 years before Christianity was made the State Religion Christians were already honoring the Virgin Mary

August is dedicated to the IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY❤️‍🔥🗡️

When I posted about Ven. Mary of Agreda, I noted that I didn't know of any other Catholic visionaries who claimed to have been revealed the true age of the world. I recently found out that there is one other: Anne Catherine Emmerich.  I saw these false computations of the pagan priests at the same time that I beheld Jesus teaching on the Sabbath at Aruma. Jesus, speaking before the Phar­isees of the Call of Abraham and his sojourn in Egypt, exposed the errors of the Egyptian calendar. He told them that the world had now existed 4028 years. When I heard Jesus say this, He was Himself thirty-one years old. - The Life of Jesus Christ, Vol. I, Ch. 9. Again, this is private revelation, so make of it what you will. It's interesting that her account conflicts with that of Ven. Mary. I must point out however that Ven. Mary's testimonies have historically received much greater scrutiny and censure from the Church and seem to be less consistent - not that she lied, but it seems hard to distinguish certain opinions from revealed truth in them. The accusations against Clemens Brentano's character and the claim that he heavily embellished Emmerich's visions are not nearly as well-founded as many make them out to be. The writings also accurately describe things that neither Emmerich nor Brentano could have had any knowledge of, like the house of Mary at Ephesus (her description was used to identify the building, which the Church made into a shrine and pilgrimage spot), and specifics of the Hebrew calendar.

One thing many theologians talk about is how the work of redemption is greater than the work of creation, and therefore had to be accomplished over long ages, in contrast to the creation, which was swift. Note that this applies not only to the creation and redemption of man, but to all of nature as well, since it was made for his sake. There are two works of God, by which all things that have been made are brought to completion. The first is the work of founding, by which those things were made which were not; the second is the work of restoration, by which those things were repaired which had perished. The work of founding is the creation of the world with all its clementis. The work of restoration is the incarnation of the Word with all its sacraments, whether those which went before the incarnation from the beginning of the age, or those which follow after up to the end of the world. The first works, therefore, were made for service, that they might be subject to man while he stood by righteousness. But the second were made for salvation, that they might raise up man as he lay by fault: therefore these are the greater. For this reason the former, as being a slight and scanty token of the divine power, were completed in a short time, that is, in six days only. But the latter, as excelling in comparison with the former and having a greater effect of power, cannot be brought to completion save in six ages. - Hugh of St. Victor, De Scripturis et Scriptoribus Sacris, Ch. II.

One thing everyone should understand in this discourse is the different uses of the term "figurative". As the Saints explain, figurative language is not inherently opposed to the literal sense, unlike symbolic or mystical language. A historical narrative can use figures of speech. When the Saints and Theologians oppose a "figurative" interpretation of Genesis, they mean a purely figurative interpretation, which opposes a straightforward understanding of the words. Conversely, when they speak of figurative language in Genesis, they are referring to figures of speech accommodated to readers who would not easily grasp technical language. We find figures of speech in the early chapters of Genesis, such as anthropomorphic language about God ("speaking", breathing", etc.). But this does not mean that these are not proper descriptions of how the events historically took place. As St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine explain, Moses used simple, sensory language, "according to appearances", precisely because the people were not adapted to precise terminology, and were ignorant of spiritual things. This means that Moses accurately yet simply described the beginning of the world as it pertains to commonly known physical things. People sometimes cite the Theologians and Saints saying that Genesis was written in language accommodated to simple people to argue that it is not to be understood in a proper or literal sense. But this truth actually reinforces why the text ought to be taken literally and historically, and the words should not be read in an abstruse, tortured, or specious sense - otherwise, the intended audience could not have grasped the true meaning. When Pius XII writes that the early chapters of Genesis are written "in simple and figurata (often translated as metaphorical, but really more properly as figurative) language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured", this actually better supports a straightforward reading of the words, rather than a contrived or artificial one meant to adapt them to scientific hypotheses about origins. To do so would be to impute a technical meaning to the words which Moses did not intend.

Next, the Book of Genesis is historical, and therefore straightforward; it was written for the unlearned by those who knew their slowness to understand, and thus it must be judged to convey that sense by which such words are ordinarily understood. - Rev. Fr. Bonaventure Baron, O.F.M., Tractatus Catholicus de Divino Opificio Hexameron (Prague, 1744), p. 4.

The French Revolution marks a major turning point in Catholic discourse on Genesis and the world-chronology, due to the work of priests who joined the Revolutionaries. One such juring priest, Fr. Jean-Louis Giraud Soulavie, deserves special attention. A member of the Jacobin Club and a friend of liberals such as Benjamin Franklin, Fr. Soulavie also broke his vows of chastity to live with his mistress. Shortly before the Revolution, he published a treatise on Genesis which further popularized the “day-age” theory of his mentor, Buffon. He met fierce opposition from the faithful clergy, and Fr. Augustin Barruel engaged him in a heated public dispute. Eventually, the local ordinary ordered Fr. Soulavie to desist, and censured his works. After the Revolution, Fr. Soulavie repented on his deathbed, and called for his old opponent Fr. Barruel to give him confession and last rites. He gave Fr. Barruel a note to be published in which he apologized for promoting, in his own words, his “errors against religion” (see p. 108 here). Unfortunately, the damage was already done. His theories became influential for later generations.

Sealing Prayer of Protection The person seals himself: I ask Jesus to seal me in His most Precious Blood, against any and all incursions of the evil one, in particular against any clinging, familial, familiar or retaliating spirits, in the Name of the Father and of the Son ✠ and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. ~ Deliverance Prayers for Use by the Laity (2018)