Sex outside sacramental marriage is a primary plot device and source of conflict in modern stories. So much so that we have come to think of extra-marital sex as normal, at least on the screen and perhaps even see it as a sign of health and freedom. That's not healthy or holy. In truth, sex outside marriage is inherently selfish and prideful and lustful. Sex outside marriage thus encompasses at least three deadly sins, severs souls from God, shatters right relationship with all they know, and risks pregnancy out of wedlock, which puts a modern woman in the near occasion of choosing murder and calling it healthcare, another mortal sin.

What if, instead, characters chose chastity? What would change? How would the story be different? Would it develop or end differently? How?

Discuss with your halo.

#CurrentlyTimeless #Halo #Marriage #Parenting #Catholic #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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To understand this shepherding moment of centuries, this article builds on the understanding provided in these two articles: Living in a Catholic Monarchy and Mass Confusion.

If shepherding occurs in moments, different moments require shepherding differently. Again, good Catholic fathers inherently know this, shepherding a preschooler in temper tantrum differently than a willfully rebellious teen differently than a dutiful teen, even if the issue in each case is poor performance in school.

Shepherd's Examination of Conscience

The good shepherd begins with an examination of conscience, recognizing Saint Augustine's point that all shepherds are ever also sheep first (Letter to Pastors, Office of Readings). As a shepherd, we are called to ask questions such as: Do I see this moment clearly? How did we get here? How is/might my own sinner blind me and how do I ask Christ to heal it and have the faith to receive it? Do I need to grow more into this office of being a parent, deepening in faith and virtue and salvation arts?

Like a good daily examination of conscience or one prior to making a good confession, self assessment of one's capacity to shepherd may be brutal, if honest, yet also reveal clear steps to heal my deafness, dumbness, blindness, and stupidity that comes to light. Confession may be one of the steps to move forward.

Sheep Assessment and the Crux of the Cross

Next, having prepared to be the best shepherd he knows how to be, the good Catholic father assesses the sheep entrusted to him by Christ. A great many errors of shepherding occur here.

We are called to shepherd from the crux of the cross, where the horizontal beam and vertical beam meet, at Christ's Most Sacred Heart; not false compassion out on the horizontal beam where “admonishing the sinner” doesn't occur nor up on the vertical beam brow beating with false justice absent Love and Mercy.

Jesus on the road to Emmaus is our Good Shepherd, revealing we are called to meet our sheep wherever they are and interact with them (the horizontal beam of Love and Mercy) and then, lest the horizontal beam, being detached from the vertical beam of Truth and Justice, never be lifted out of the quagmire and miasma of sin's filth, admonish them to drive home the need to turn away from sin and live faithful to the Gospel: “Oh how foolish you are!” (Luke 24:25) so as to motivate them to hear with fresh ears God's Love (Truth, Justice, and Mercy), for only then can they have eyes to see Christ in the breaking of the bread and realize He was with them all along.

Just beginning to sort out Vatican II

We botched both our understanding and initial implementation of the Second Vatican Council. Our Church is beginning to see that the Second Vatican Council offered a slight redirecting without promulgating anything new or changing Church teaching. The so called “spirit” of Vatican II told us we were to largely ignore everything prior to 1960 and only their secret understanding of the Council was to be paid attention to (Manichaeism heresy, anyone?). We are just beginning to realize that the grave errors of this so called “spirit” of Vatican II are not the actual Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy) of Vatican II. Bishop Nickless, referencing Pope Benedict XVI, explains: “The so called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord's work” (Pastoral Letter Ecclesia Semper Reformanda: The Church is Always in Need of Renewal).

In other words, we have no idea what Mass would look like had the Church actually obeyed Vatican II's Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. It called for a very different process and metrics for instituting change. It called us to retain Latin except in specific parts, give primacy of place to Gregorian Chant, and never called for the priest to face the people as the default posture. This confusion in the Church hierarchy and confused milieu of the faithful greatly defines this shepherding moment and what the faithful need as one next step toward Christ.

Shepherding Poverty?

With such confusion, how likely is it our current understanding of shepherding is less than what it has been in our Church's more than two-thousand-years? Do we suffer from a poverty of shepherds and thus shepherding? How goes our examination of shepherding conscience? Is our understanding of shepherding impoverished? If so, how do we invite Christ to heal it and deepen our faith, prayer, and fasting, so we more fully grow into the shepherding office with which Christ has entrusted us? Are we living up to the revealed example of Our Good Shepherd to “Love one another as I have loved you” and the two millennia of lived shepherding wisdom and experience? (John 13:34). How goes our shepherding examination of conscience?

Wayward Society

Society is wayward. No longer are the Church and her princes viewed positively, let alone as authoritative. We are dismissed by modernists of all flavors as just another voice spouting primitive religion that humanity has supposedly outgrown.

And yet...growing numbers of people in the younger generations see the poisonous fruit of twisted liberty, no Truth or authority, communism, progressivism, and liberalism surrounding them. They hunger for something solid: Truth (Love, Justice, Mercy) eternal. They are much like native peoples who hunger for truth and without ever hearing of Christ, are yet humbly obedient to the idea there is Truth (Love, Justice, Mercy) larger than opinions or feelings or any group, that marriage must be more than “love is love, while it lasts,” among other aspects of God's natural law they feel written on the human heart. This reality, and all that has led to it also greatly defines this shepherding moment.

How do we shepherd in this moment?

How do we meet people where they are, walk with them (yes, Christ's version of synodality, which is incomplete without the rest of what He did on the road to Emmaus), admonish the sinner, reveal God's Love (Truth, Justice, and Mercy) in their lives and in salvation history, and then, at the crossroads go our own way, and if they invite us to join them for it is late, break bread with them, revealing Christ is with them always and giving the instruction on how to become Catholic as we go about our shepherding way, leaving them with a choice to make...continue to run away or return to Jerusalem and become Catholic.

This gives a glimpse of the hard questions and state of shepherds, the faithful, and society. This is the current shepherding moment of centuries. How will we shepherd?

#CurrentlyTimeless #Catholic #HumanEndeavor #Parenting #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection #Symposium #VaticanII #SpiritOfVaticanII

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Over our two-thousand-year history, Catholics learned we become our liturgy. How we pray becomes who we are. Yet, in the years and decades since the Second Vatican Council, our liturgy has become confused. No wonder we Catholics are confused. Our faith, prayer, and lives are not integrated. We live disintegrated from our faith, to varying degrees, because our prayer has become disintegrated from our faith.

The deep, satiating Mass of the Ages, the Vetus Ordo, is frozen in time. The Mass prayed, lived, and loved by nearly all the Church's saints in her history, is no longer a living liturgy organically shifting with the Body as we grow and move. Simultaneously, the Mass experienced by most of the living faithful , the Novus Ordo, was implemented without clearly following the desires of the Second Vatican Council. And, in some ways, it was implemented clearly defying her own documents: for the Novus Ordo presumes the priest faces the people, speaks only vernacular, and all but eliminates sacred chant—despite the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy calling for retaining much Latin, presuming the priest is ad orientem (facing liturgical East, with the people), and recommending Gregorian chant. Additionally, the Novus Ordo, invites liturgical abuse with the nebulous rubric phrases, “according to local custom,” and “in these or similar words,” the former still included, the latter printed in the initial editions of the Missal (No. 8-11, 21, 23, 36-37, 116).

The faithful face a choice: a persecuted Mass, frozen in time yet deeply satiating, or a Mass confused, and less satisfying, yet somehow limping along.

We must also grapple with the collectively dawning realization that the so called “spirit” of Vatican II was not the Holy Spirit, but Satan sneaking in immediately after consolation, as Saint Ignatius warns is common in his Discernment of Spirits. As Bishop Nickless explains, having referenced Pope Benedict XVI, “The so called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord's work” (Pastoral Letter Ecclesia Semper Reformanda: The Church is Always in need of Renewal).

Where does this leave us in this moment, with the Liturgy of the Mass and how it feeds the body of Christ? Christ in the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist is fully present in both Vetus Ordo and Novus Ordo. The reality is that although we are in the early days of implementing the Second Vatican Council, we can see the changes enacted these past 6 decades have sown confusion. The question is, how do we look to the future and move toward a Mass that is what the Second Vatican Council called for? How do we follow the clear vision of the Council and draw Novus Ordo toward the more timeless and satiating, yet frozen Vetus Ordo?

Councils take two-hundred years to be maturely implemented, however long those two-hundred years may be. Holy Mother Church yearns to nourish and feed her children. Two-hundred years from now, I strongly suspect the memory of the Novus Ordo we now know will be, “In retrospect, we bought formula but over time returned to breast milk and made it more accessible.” How we get there is the challenge we face these next two hundred years.

In the meanwhile, whichever Mass we attend, let us lift our eyes to Christ on the Most Holy Cross, hear His Word, and receive His Most Precious Body and Blood, that we may be nourished to go forth and build the City of God amidst the city of sin.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi: “As we pray, so we believe, so we live.”

#Catholic #CurrentlyTimeless #Mass #AdOrientem #VetusOrdo #Shepherding

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We live in a Catholic monarchy. Jesus our Christ is our King, our Blessed Virgin Mother our Queen. True, in the United States, our local government is, of the moment, if we can keep it, a democratic republic, with regions devolving into anarchy courtesy of modernism's progressivism. Yet, we all, each and every one, regardless of belief, live in a Catholic monarchy. This realization likely leaves us with a lot to (re)examine, including history, monarchy, some of our cherished human rights, and how we Catholics answer Christ's call to be in the world but not of it.

An overarching Catholic monarchy lived by Catholics threatens and terrifies tyrants and anarchists, other despots, and those whose delusions depend on God's non-existence. Interestingly enough, this terror of the Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy) is part of the proof of the Truth. Catholics, therefore, appear to “hate” much in the modern world, when we love one another as Christ has loved us (Jn 13:34). Pride has those deluded by the various poisons of the fallen world needing to rule at the top; be it a kingdom of many or, in the case of nihilists and anarchists, an ever dwindling kingdom of one.

Monarchy is the governance model God gives us, and He freely shares His authority. He appoint husbands as head of house to love their wives as Christ loves His Church (Eph 5), priests, bishops, and our pope, all as ruling shepherds over the sheep entrusted to them by Christ.

A brief history may help, for modern history ignores the Catholic Golden Age, claiming it was part of the Dark Ages. For 1,200 years, from Charlemagne in 600 to the last vestiges ended unjustly after World War 1 due to the fear and hatred described above, the Holy Roman Empire served her people in various forms and imperfections. Yet, by the grace of God working through His authority on earth, she ushered in a Catholic Golden Age, out of the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire. Agriculture and trade developed and flourished, universities and hospitals formed, various sciences emerged—advances that occurred nowhere else.

Out of the Dark Age, the Church upheld and recognized and aided the rising authority of Catholic monarchs. Pope Leo XIII, pope from 1878 to 1903, explains: “...when Christian rulers were at the head of States, the Church insisted much more on testifying and preaching how much sanctity was inherent in the authority of rulers” (Diuturum Illud, No. 21) So much so that “Obedience to authority is obedience to God” (Ibid. No. 27).

As Pope Leo XIII explains: “...from the time when the civil society of men raised from the ruins of the Roman Empire, gave hope of its future Christian greatness, the Roman Pontiffs, by the institution of the Holy Roman Empire, consecrated to political power in a wonderful manner. Greatly, indeed, was the authority of rulers ennobled; and it is not to be doubted that what was then instituted would always have been a very great gain, both to ecclesiastical and civil society, if princes and peoples had ever looked to the same object as the Church. And, indeed, tranquility and a sufficient prosperity lasted so long as there was a friendly agreement between the two powers” (Diuturum Illud, No. 22).

Pope Leo XIII goes on to explain the checks and balances on the State, as well as the people: “If the people were turbulent, the Church was at once the mediator for peace. Recalling all to their duty, she subdued the more lawless passions partly by kindness and partly by authority. So, if, in ruling, princes erred in their government, she went to them and, putting before them the rights, needs, and lawful wants of their people, urged them to equity, mercy, and kindness. Whence, it was often brought about that the dangers of civil wars and popular tumults were stayed” (Ibid.)

Arguably, we have fallen into a new Dark Age, under the weight of Martin Luther's attack on God's authority on earth, in the form of the Sola Heresies (I refer to them this way as each of his heresies' first word is “sola”: scriptura, fide, gratia). Pope Leo XIII again explains: “...the doctrines on political power invented by late writers (of the so called Enlightenment and Rationalists) have already produced great ills among men, and it is to be feared that they will cause the very greatest disasters to posterity. For an unwillingness to attribute the right of ruling to God, as its Author, is no less than a willingness to blot out the greatest splendor of political power and to destroy its force. And they who say that this power depends on the will of the people err in opinion first of all; then they place authority on too weak and unstable a foundation...From this heresy (the Sola Heresies of Martin Luther) there arose in the last century a false philosophy—a new right as it is called, and a popular authority, together with an unbridled license which many regard as the only true liberty. Hence we have reached the limit of horrors, to wit, Communism, Socialism, Nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin” (Ibid. No. 23).

This shocks the modern mind: A Catholic monarchy has more immediate and effective checks and balances on it than are built into the Constitution of the United States. A Catholic monarch strives to have bold, humble obedience to God, including His Church, the royal family, and the people of God. Read the writings of the Reigning Prince of Liechtenstein Hans-Adam II in The State in the Third Millennium and The Habsburg Way by Eduard Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and they also describe the workings of these checks and balances of a Catholic monarchy by God's authority on earth.

To understand history, and the rise and eventual neutering of Protestant monarchies, we need only understand that Martin Luther's Sola Heresies evaporated these checks and balances, leaving Protestant monarchs deluded into believing they alone were the highest authority to interpret God's revelation, something no good Catholic would do (keeping in mind Christ Himself defers to the will of the Father).

Is a Catholic monarchy perfect? Not this side of death's veil; it is, however, the best governance model there is, divinely instituted. As near as I can see, based on the nurturing and defense of obedience to God's authority on earth in each: Catholic monarchy > democratic republic >> Protestant monarchy >>>> all others.

As with any shifting and developing relationship, the emergence of a Catholic emperor caused challenges as the papacy and monarchy sorted out how and where authority flowed. Much the same long term learning is occurring in these recent centuries between emerging democratic republics and the papacy and society at large, especially with the added shift of the disenlightenment and rise of irrationalism that now infuses society. Time and experience improved the relationship with the Holy Roman Empire through the centuries, as both chose bold, humble obedience to Christ and thus learned and improved how each filled their divinely appointed office.

Jump forward to the current challenge between the papacy and modernist society: Is similar improvement possible when one of the parties rejects the existence of God? Improvement depends on bold, humble obedience to Christ; thus, the question becomes one of how to shepherd a wayward child who has turned away from Truth, Love, Justice, and Mercy. How did this happen? Since 1517, society has been in decline, not ascent. Authority—which is only granted by God—on earth, the Church, Catholic monarchies, and in individuals, was attacked by Martin Luther's Sola Heresies. The Church has reeled since with how to shepherd. How does one shepherd amidst the confusion of modernism? Naming and lamenting the errors, including that only the individual can discern Truth and the authority to rule derives from the people, not from God, is a start, yet how do we answer Christ's call of the spiritual act of mercy to “admonish the sinner”? Shepherding people out of modernism's many errors is akin to parenting a wayward teen running with the wrong crowd, relishing sex, drugs, and violence.

In theory, in a democratic republic, a well formed, faithful people have a collective authority of sensus fidelium, sense of the faithful, in discerning how they vote (the same authority that is a check and balance against a wayward Catholic monarch); yet when society erodes the “fidelium”, the authority decreases; so to, as leaders have less or no fidelium, what authority they had also erodes, for they have no Christ compass to recognize Truth, Love, Justice and Mercy.

Pope Leo XIII explains part of the root of this shepherding challenge with the many flavors of modernism—including liberalism, progressivism, communism, socialism, nihilism, and anarchy—“For fear, as Saint Thomas (Aquinas) admirably teaches 'is a weak foundation: for those who are subdued by fear would, should the occasion arise in which they might hope for immunity, rise more eagerly against their rulers, in proportion to the previous extent of their restraint through fear'” (Diuturum Illud, No. 24). With diminished authority, fear of punishment is the remaining motivation to obey to the law and there is no motivation to obey what is just.

This explains the chaos of our time. How, then, are we to be Catholic in a local democratic republic? Firstly, we ought always remember we are within the rule of Christ our King. Secondly, much as early Christians were faithful leaven as citizens of the Roman Empire, which persecuted them, we called to be leaven.

Saint Alphonsus De Liguori described Saint Sebastian's martyrdom: “Sebastian answered that he considered he was rendering the greatest possible service to the emperor (as a soldier), since the state benefited by having Christian subjects, whose fidelity to their sovereign is proportionate to their devotedness to Jesus Christ. The emperor, enraged at this reply, ordered that the saint should be instantly tied to a post and that a body of archers should discharge their arrows upon him” (Victories of the Martyrs, Ch. LXII).

In more modern times, Pope Leo explains: “The Church of Christ indeed cannot be an object of suspicion to rulers, nor of hatred to the people; for it urges rulers to follow justice, and in nothing to decline from their duty; while at the same time it strengthens and in many ways supports their authority” (Diuturum Illud, No. 26).

As faithful Catholics, our challenge is to be formed by the Church. We are called to turn to the shepherds Christ entrusts us to so Christ, through them, may shepherd us. As we become more formed, we become leaven throughout society. No matter the local government, or the state of society, Christ within us rises, elevating society. This is how the Church can shepherd manfully amidst these modern errors, and how we faithful can be manfully shepherded. Who but Christ through His Church can name error of our modern ways? For we hold as cherished rights these errors, so turned around by Satan are we: the supposed even plane of ideas, the individual as the highest authority of Truth, and the people, not God, as the source of authority to rulers, among others.

We Catholics are called to elevate public discourse, both with how we live our lives and how we converse with others who do not yet understand. We ought never entertain the voice and temptation and lies of Satan in modernism's many flavors. To modernist eyes, any just voice elevating discourse spouts authoritarian hate. To anarchists, everything looks like fascism.

We Catholics are called to be leaven. Let us turn to our shepherds to form us, that by living our Faith we elevate the city of man, in which we live but are not of, toward becoming the City of God, by being the light of Christ on the hill.

Now, how do I get this bushel off my head?

May Christ startle you with joy!

#BlessedVirginMary #CurrentlyTimeless #HumanEndeavor #Catholic #Monarchy #Shepherding #Symposium #Communism #PopeLeoXIII #Nihilism #Modernism #Progressivism #MartinLuther #Habsburg #Lichtenstein #DarkAge #GoldenAge

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Catholic understanding and terms differ greatly from that of society. Why? As Catholics, we have Christ's full revelation of Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy), and this differs greatly from fallen society. From a Catholic perspective, freedom is the ability to choose God. For speech to be free, therefore, it must reject Satan's lies and boldly, humbly seek Christ's Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy). As Catholics, we are called to challenge people to free their speech of Satan's lies and elevate it toward Christ's Truth.

To understand society's take on free speech, we need to reach back to the 18th century (dis)Enlightenment's proposal—that if ideas were allowed to fight it out, as in the Roman Colosseum, truth will win. This is the foundation for the “right” to free speech.

The Catholic Church is against free speech. Beginning in the mid 1800s, Popes decried the elevation of Satan's lies to being on an equal plane as Christ's Truth. Woven between the lines of these encyclicals is the lament for the faded humble deference once given to the Church as the guardian of Truth, and the decline of Catholic monarchies, which once stood as state and co-shepherds of public discourse. Though ideas might be explored and debated in universities, under the caring shepherding of the Church, in broader public discourse, people humbly stuck with proclaimed Church teaching, entrusting their souls to the care of Holy Mother Mary, the Church.

In short, the Church is against free speech because Jesus extols us to never entertain or give voice to demons, and by extension, sin. There is a hierarchy of ideas, with Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy) on top and Satan and his lies on the bottom. We ought not give voice to Satan's lies.

Society's free speech, however, says we should allow those giving voice to Satan's lies to speak, turning all of society into what used to be the university setting for the exploration of ideas, but absent the shepherding. No. This has resulted in society's embrace of demonic attitudes, policies, and laws: abortion, gender dysphoria and body mutilation, euthanasia, the degradation of marriage and family, and loss of Judeo-Christian morals that once underpinned society—among many other evils.

Yet, as we see in Great Britain, allowing the State to regulate “hate” speech leads to tyrannical suppression of the truth, as people praying silently on the sidewalk or quoting scripture about the evils of transgender, abortion, and other evils are fined and jailed. After all, to Satan, the Truth is “hate” speech.

Now, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, calls are emerging from both the left and the right for controls on “hate” speech, ignoring the reality that Satan's lies hate Christ's Truth and Christ's Truth hates Satan's lies. What a mess.

What is the Catholic answer? If laissez-faire free speech is abhorrent, how do we Catholics believe speech ought to be elevated to be truly free? Simple (and thus, hard): shepherding.

Ask any good, manful, Catholic father (for whom, Holy Papa Joseph is the model) if he allows free speech in his house and the instant response is, “Of course not!”

Press further and ask, “What if someone brings up one of Satan's lies (abortion, gender dysphoria, et al)? What do you do?”

Here, every good, manful, Catholic father's answer will differ in wording but not in meaning, all responding: “We have a conversation, starting with the Truth that Jesus is the answer. Then we ask the question, how do we get to His Truth (Love, Justice, Mercy) from where we are?”

A good, manful, Catholic father is a good shepherd. He knows in the depths of his soul, led by his intellect, that the error of the disenlightenment's free speech proposal is that it denies the existence of original sin and concupiscence, which makes Satan's lies alluring. To voice Satan's lies as truth is to sin and put others in the near occasion of sin—every lie rooted in the singular lie that we do not need God.

As a result, the good, manful, Catholic father at the dinner table cultivates and defends innocence and strives to turn the eyes of those in his care away from sin and toward the Gospel.

Shepherding is the Church's answer to elevating public discourse out of the violent melee of competing ideas, as if fighting to the death in the Roman Colosseum, and guiding it to a higher plane of humility and obedience to Christ's full revealed Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy). This invites all to enter the conversation by choosing to silence lies and never entertain Satan's notions, which all reject God.

The good shepherd meets his sheep on the road to Emmaus—where they are dismayed, distraught, and on the brink of Nietzsche's abyss of Satan's despair—and through loving conversation and grace of God, invites them to see Him and return to the fold and boldly, humbly be His disciples.

We have Catholic shepherds throughout society: Fathers. Mothers. Deacons. Priests. Bishops. Business owners. Politicians. Neighbors. Every shepherd is called to elevate the conversation: “Christ is the answer. Now, let's talk about how to get there.”

Absent a faithful Catholic monarchy, no state has shepherding authority to elevate free speech, including laws against “hate” speech. Instead, the Catholic answer to not allowing speech that gives voice to Satan's lies is the leaven of shepherds infused throughout society.

Shepherding is the Catholic answer to elevating speech to be free. Which begs two questions. What does it mean to shepherd? Who is a shepherd? A shepherd is one to whom God grants authority of pastoral care over others. A good shepherd answers Jesus' call to “Love one another as I have loved you.” (ref Jn 13:34-35) Where to begin? Shepherding Quick Guide

#CurrentlyTimeless #Catholic #BlessedVirginMary #Marriage #Parenting #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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