Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 7, 2015
The Year the World Stumbled
Each day during
the Octave of Corpus Christi, we commemorate the mystery of the Holy Eucharist,
pondering the words of Our Lord: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you”
(Jn.6:54). Life? Jesus speaks not of the natural life shared by every
descendent of Adam and Eve, but of the supernatural life, the spiritual life,
the life that comes with Sanctifying Grace through Baptism. We are sons of God
by adoption, sharing His life through grace. We are made holy, united in a holy
union with the angels and the saints. We are alive! And this life is sustained
in us by eating the Bread of Life in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. This life
is not given to those who have refused the Lord’s invitation to the Wedding
Feast.
The natural man
knows nothing of the life promised by Our Lord. After Jesus offered His
disciples His flesh to eat and His Blood to drink many of them walked away.
Jesus explained to the Apostles, “This is why I have said to you, ‘no one can
come to me unless he is enabled to do so by my Father’” (Jn.6:66). When He
asked the twelve if they would also leave, Peter answered: “Lord, to whom shall
we go? Thou hast words of everlasting life, and we have come to believe and to
know that thou art the Christ, the Son of God” (Jn.6:69,70).
The Apostles had
faith, but the natural man, the man without faith, cannot understand the things
of the spirit. Those who do not have faith are like zombies, who do not know
they are dead. Not only do they not understand spiritual things, but they
oppose them, persecuting the children of God. As Jesus says, “He who is not
with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Lk.11:23).
The natural man
plans our lives for us – our education, our family life, our work, our
clothing, our leisure, our entertainment. Most can no longer think for themselves,
because he has also taken command of the language, “dumbing it down”, and
loading it with words and phrases that disguise the greatest evil as something
good, phrases like “pro choice”. Does a woman have a right to choose to kill
her unborn child? The Lord’s Commandment says: “Thou shalt not kill!” The child
in the womb is a precious human being who may someday be led to the Font of
Baptism and be fed with the Bread of Life. But those who can’t get beyond the
words “pro choice” cannot see the truth. Those who control our language control
our thoughts.
In 1949 George
Orwell published his prophetic novel, “1984.” Later he wrote an appendix in
which he explained the principles of “Newspeak”, the language which, in the
novel, was created to replace traditional English, which was being abandoned in
the new world of English Socialism (IngSoc):
“The purpose of
Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and
mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of
thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once
and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought – that is, a thought
diverging from the principles of IngSoc – should be literally unthinkable, at
least so far as thought is dependent on words.” The great works of English literature
would have to be translated into Newspeak, a task which “meant that no book
written before approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole” (The Principles of Newspeak,
newspeakdictionary.com).
What was it about 1960?
Both Church and world stumbled. Our Lady’s Third Fatima Secret was to be
revealed in 1960, but it was shelved by John XXXIII. The planned revolutionary
council, Vatican II, which specialized in “doublespeak,” was about to begin. It
would rewrite Church history and doctrine, downplaying practically everything
written before 1960, and imposing the Vatican II variety of Newspeak upon
unsuspecting Catholics throughout the world. As a result, most Catholics who
follow the Newchurch speak a new impoverished language which renders them
incapable of understanding traditional Catholicism. No longer able to think for
themselves, they have become the brainwashed drones of Orwell’s novel.
“George Orwell saw
not only the poverty but the danger of a language that had become purely
contemporary. A language without roots, without the authority of generations
implicit in its usages, is the perfect instrument for tyranny” (Joe Sobran, d.
Sept. 10, 2010, We’re Losing Shakespeare,
sobran.com).
So are we going to
let them do this to us? How about a little righteous indignation against those
who are harassing our souls! There is a place for just anger – not the
irrational anger that causes us to lose control of ourselves and strike out at everyone
– but righteous anger, Godly anger. Should we not be angry when confronted with
their odious work – their ridicule, their lies, their blasphemies, their
allurements, their seductions, their satanic music, their lewd performances,
their places of carnal delights? Jesus Himself was filled with indignation at
the Pharisees. And with righteous anger He threw the money changers out of the
Temple.
So are we going to
let them destroy our souls? That moral monster at the other end of the shameful
image that flashes upon our computer screen is no friend, but an agent of Hell.
May St. Michael and the Heavenly Armies strike at such and send them reeling
into the bottomless pit where they belong!
But we have true
friends with whom we share a spiritual language which is hidden from the
worldly. That language is prayer. We can call upon Holy Mary, the Mother of
God, to go to war for us against the Dragon, and upon a host of Heavenly Angels
and Saints to pray without ceasing for our victory over the powers of Hell.
The Lord feeds us
with His greatest gift, the Hidden Manna, the Bread from Heaven, the food of
those who accept His invitation to the Wedding Feast: “Lo! Upon the altar lies,
Hidden deep from human eyes, Bread of angels from the skies, made the food of
mortal man… Thou who feedest us below! Source of all we have and know! Grant
that with Thy saints above, Sitting at the feast of love, we may see Thee face
to face. Amen. Alleluia” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sequence of Corpus Christi).
