The following are
excerpts from Chapter I of the Second Part of the book entitled, The Christian Trumpet: or, Previsions and
Predictions about Impending General Calamities, The Universal Triumph of the
Church, The Coming of Antichrist, The Last Judgment, and the End of the World
by an anonymous priest in 1875. It
is essential that we imbibe its spirit; that we let the truth it contains
wash away the doubts, fears, and pusillanimity that may have crept into us
Soldiers of Christ during the decades of our struggle. We can then pray the
Little Office of Our Lady with the proper Catholic mindset: that of a brave
army with an undefeated and undefeatable General.
Since the sixteenth
century, and during more than three hundred years, many and various weapons
were forged by persecuting men of every class of society in different parts of
the world against the body of Jesus Christ, the Church of the living God. Beginning
with that of the apostate Luther, many tongues were whetted to fight against
Catholicity with bitter words of calumny, with damnable heretical doctrines,
and with maxims of impiety. In hatred of their divine faith and holy religion,
faithful Catholics were persecuted, betrayed, and put to death in the largest
portion of Europe (including persecuting Russia), in Eastern Asia, and also in
North America. To this very moment we have been most stubbornly denied our full
and equal civil and political rights in many European countries, and, at least
in practice, in some other younger nations that boast of their liberality.
During the last hundred and fifty years secret societies of professed
infidelity and hatred against Catholicity have been organized with the sworn
promise and determination to root out from the earth, and to crush down into
the mud, what, to the horror of Christianity, the blasphemous tongue of
Voltaire called the infamous, ecraser
línfame, namely, Jesus Christ and his Holy Church. Their malice is equal to
their impiety. They know that, so long as the Catholic Church exists upon
earth, Jesus Christ will be worshipped by men; hence their fiendish hatred
against this Holy Church; hence their secret plots and extensive conspiracies
against the infallible Pope and King of Rome; hence their determined and
general efforts to deprive our children of Catholic schools; hence their
general oppression of Catholics in every department of religious, civil,
political, and military life. Since
their impious leader, Voltaire, exhorted them to this work, they have been, and
are more every day, determined to crush the infamous ecraser línfame. As their predecessors, the pagan persecutors in
the first three centuries of Christianity, became furious with impotent rage,
when the individual life of Christian confessors was preserved by the
miraculous interposition of God, and in their malice invented new and more
cruel instruments of torture for the destruction of their innocent victims, so
the same practiced is adopted at the present age by the modern persecutors of
the Roman Catholic faith and religion…
…In short, we believe that the
Church of Jesus Christ, the Roman Catholic Church, is nothing else and nothing
less than the expansion, the extension, and the perfection of his divine
incarnation. Hence we believe that, of
the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne
of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it with justice and with judgment
from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.
(Isa. ix. 6)
This throne and kingdom of David is
the spiritual kingdom of Jesus, namely, his Holy Catholic Church. We have
learned this truth from the words of the Archangel Gabriel, who said to the
Virgin Mary: Fear not, Mary, for thou
hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt
bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and
shall be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him
the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob
forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. (Luke i. 30)
To this spiritual kingdom of Jesus
Christ there shall be no end in duration, no limit to its extent, no check to
its progress in the mind and heart of nations.
Lately, on a solemn occasion, a high
personage, in reading his inaugural address to his civil and military officers,
in the presence of the diplomatic representatives of earthly governments, and
before a large multitude of his republican fellow-citizens, declared that in a
short term he hoped to see all men united under one form of government, under
one flag, and all speaking the same language. His words may perhaps have been
inspired by the spirit of prophecy, because, he is the high magistrate, not for one, but for four years, over
many millions of people, representing almost every nation under the sun. We
most firmly hope to see this anticipation verified in about two decades of years in the Catholic Church under the
spiritual government of the infallible Pope of Rome, having the Labarum of Constantine for its standard,
and using in every temple of true divine worship the Latin language in the
sacred liturgy of our holy religion.
Both good and bad men have for
centuries been working hard to prepare the way for this long-desired and
glorious event. Since the epoch of the sixteenth century, heresy, impiety, and
consequently moral corruption, have radically subverted every human, civil,
political, military, and religious institution. Human society is in a fever of
excitement. A terrible confusion of ideas and practices predominates in every
earthly, political and religious system. The so-called ministers of the modern
gospel are made and unmade, according to the passing whims of those who
condescend to sit under their pulpits, and whom these licensed preachers study
to please and flatter in order to secure lease of their place and salary. This
fact proves the actual realization of St. Paul’s prophecy, who wrote: There shall be a time when they (false
Christians) will not bear sound doctrine,
but according to their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers having
itching ears, and will turn away indeed their hearing from the truth, and will
be turned to fables. (2 Tim. iv. 3)
The antichristian maxims, adopted by
modern sectaries and forced upon civil governments, have shorn them of their
dignity and strength, and crippled their power and energy for good. The sovereign people refuse to be governed,
but aspire to dominion, and those who should obey, pretend to command.
Dignities are prostituted to personal ambition, the common good is sacrificed
to official rapacity, immorality and crime are rather stimulated than checked
and punished by many in high stations and official power. Humanity groans in a
dismal and appalling chaos of disorder and misery. The human heart longs for
order, stability, security, justice, and peace.
It is only the supernatural power of
a religion with the sanction of divine authority that is able to draw out of
human chaos, and restore hope and happiness to the desponding heart of society.
It is only an infallible Church that can promptly detect and authoritatively
condemn all religious and moral errors, and teach all truths to humanity. The
Roman Catholic Apostolic Church alone can appeal to the present and past
generations of two thousand years, to witness that she possesses these divine
prerogatives, because she alone has constantly exercised them for the general
welfare of mankind.
Hence all true and good men ardently
desire and fervently pray for her speedy universal triumph. Hence Catholic
unions for supplications, and for the exercise of zeal and virtue and charity.
Hence the universal revival of faith in the Catholic world. Hence the solemn
declaration by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican of the Popes
infallibility, which secures to Catholicity a safe, trusty, unerring, and
victorious leader in the approaching spiritual conquest of the world. Unity is
strength, and strength united is victory and triumph. Magna est veritas et prevalebit.
The proximity of this final victory
and glorious triumph of the Catholic Church is announced by the actual
accomplishment of the great prophecy made two thousand and six hundred years
ago by the holy Prophet Isaias, and confirmed about two thousand years hence by
the greatest of all prophets. (Luke iii. 5.) The following are their words:--
Be
comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God. Speak to the heart of
Jerusalem, and call to her; for her evil is come to an end. The voice of one
crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the
wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every
mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and
the rough ways plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all
flesh together shall see the salvation of God….Behold, the Lord God shall come
with strength, and his arm shall rule. Behold, his reward is with him, and his
work is before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather
together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom. (Isa.
xl. 3.)
With the following
re-affirmation of the substance of Father’s message, let us begin a consideration
of the comfort and strength to be found in the Little Office of Our Lady, our
Virgin Queen, and our Maiden General, who will lead the Mystical Body of Christ
to Its triumph:
Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your
God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her; for her evil is come to
an end. The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord;
make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley shall be
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall
become straight, and the rough ways plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all flesh together shall see the salvation of God….Behold, the
Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule. Behold, his reward
is with him, and his work is before him. He shall feed his flock like a
shepherd. He shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them
up in his bosom. (Isa. xl. 3.)
The outcome
of the battle is clear: Holy Mother Church will emerge from Her eclipse more
glorious than ever. Christ will come to take His Bride to Heaven, even as He
took His Immaculate Mother to Heaven, body and soul at the end of Her life on
earth. The Church, Our Mother, has given us the Little Office of the Blessed
Virgin Mary to encourage us in these days when all seems lost; when the Church
has all but disappeared, when the Mass, the Sacraments, are almost impossible to find any legitimate
bishops and even a true pope are absent. The indefectibility of the Church
guarantees that we will have at least one bishop with jurisdiction, but he may
be hidden for a time – even a very long time. Our Lady told us that when all
seemed lost, Christ Our King and she Our Queen would intervene: The Triumph of
the Immaculate Heart = The Reign of Christ the King. I hope that this devotion
will remind us when we get discouraged, that we must not fear, nor despair. It
is with that hope in mind that I have compiled this information, as a reminder
that as the river in the south, the Lord will turn our captivity into triumph
and the Church will once again shine as bright as the sun and as beautiful as
the moon rising.
Let us take St. Joan of Arc as a reminder. St. Joan was a young maiden from an obscure village in France who was appointed by God to lead the armies of France to victory. She was, in effect, the General of the army. Before the victory could be won, St. Joan made the soldiers amend their lives, confess their sins and receive the Blessed Sacrament. God then gave them the victory. The Blessed Virgin Mary is our General. She has given us our orders at Mexico, Quito, Rue de Bac, La Salette, Lourdes, Fatima:
Pray the Little Office
Pray the Rosary
Wear the Brown Scapular
Do your daily duty
Make sacrifices and do penance.
If we are soldiers of Christ, we must follow the orders of our General!
¡Viva Cristo Rey!
¡Viva la Virgen Maria!
Vive le Roi!
Karl
