Our Gethsemane

From Mark Mallet:

There is a palpable sense of abandonment spreading, especially when the faithful are being deprived of “private” Sacraments such as Confession or Communion to the sick. In Belgium, even Baptism is being denied to small gatherings. All of this seems unfathomable to a Church whose saints once boldly walked among the sick to comfort and help them, rather than “self-isolate.” Indeed, it would seem that the Pope has heard the lament of the lambs as he addressed the shepherds recently:

In the epidemic of fear that all of us are living because of the pandemic of the coronavirus, we risk acting like hired hands and not like shepherds… Think of all the souls who feel terrified and abandoned because we pastors follow the instructions of civil authorities — which is right in these circumstances to avoid contagion — while we risk putting aside divine instructions — which is a sin. We think as men think and not as God. —POPE FRANCIS, March 15th, 2020; Brietbart.com

Thus, many souls are making their way to Gethsemane where the Vigil of Sorrows has begun. In fact, as Christ handed over His liberty to the authorities through the “kiss of Judas,” so too, the Church is subjecting nearly all her freedom to the government and those who “know best.” But this has been long in the making ever since the “separation of Church and State” has, little by little, removed the Church from influence in the public sphere. While this is not necessarily related to the coronavirus, it is relevant, as we see clearly now that the Church is hardly autonomous today.

When we have cast ourselves upon the world and depend for protection upon it, and have given up our independence and our strength, then [Antichrist] will burst upon us in fury as far as God allows him. —St. John Henry Newman, Sermon IV: The Persecution of Antichrist

(Read more.)

Litany of the Holy Heart of St. Joseph

(Source.)

Our Lady of Akita, the Sign of Jonah, and the Coronavirus Pestilence

From Unveiling the Apocalypse:

Given the fact that the appearance of Coronavirus took place roughly 40 days after Sr. Agnes issued her latest private revelation in October 2019 (after decades of silence) gives us serious pause for thought. Especially since this private revelation is also so closely linked with the "sign of Jonah" - which originally involved not just a solar eclipse, but also a series of pestilences and a period of social unrest, before the Ninevites were eventually brought to repentance by adorning sackcloth and ashes. (See my previous blog post The Sign of Jonah and the Binding of Satan) The world has now been suddenly brought to the greatest point of crisis seen since the Second World War, in the very year which I highlighted as being of considerable importance in my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: The Final Passover of the Church (published in 2016). In Sr. Agnes' recent private revelation, the call to repentance by adorning sackcloth and ashes has become more clear than ever, and the world cannot go on ignoring the numerous signs that have been given by God of the chastisement that awaits if we continue to turn our backs on Him. (Read more.)

More on Akita, HERE.

Salus Populi Romani

The Vicar of Christ before the Crucifix at St Marcello al Corso

Pope Francis before the Madonna Salus Populi Romani at St. Mary Major

Salus Populi Romani: Protectress and Health of the Roman People

The Holy Father makes a pilgrimage. From The Daily Mail:

Pope Francis defied Italian government advice to stay indoors and today walked to church through Rome's deserted streets to pray for the end of coronavirus. The Catholic leader had earlier delivered a blessing from his balcony window above an eerily empty St Peter's Square, which has been closed to worshippers as part of the country's sweeping lockdown. Francis then left the Vatican to visit two churches in the Italian capital, first praying in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore before strolling down the usually bustling Via del Corso. He headed to the St Marcello al Corso, which poignantly hosts a crucifix carried in a 1522 procession in Rome when the city was stricken with plague. (Read more.)

From The National Catholic Register:

The Byzantine icon of Salus Populi Romani was also processed through Rome by Pope Gregory I in 593 for an end to the plague known as the Black Death. The icon has been revered by the people of Rome for centuries and is considered a symbol of the city and its people. According to Fr. Lops, Pope Francis wanted to make the visit to encourage Italians during the quarantine conditions across Italy.

“It was all a surprise,” Fr. Lops said, adding that Pope Francis had wanted to go to the Basilica of St. Mary Major on March 13, the seventh anniversary of his pontificate, but being unable to, had told Cardinal Rylko he would come at another, unspecified time. Rome, like all of Italy, is currently under lockdown, with people required to stay home except for strict cases of necessity. All non-essential businesses are also closed. The action by the pope was not in any way intended to be against the decrees of the Italian government, Fr. Lops explained, but was meant as a sign of encouragement to Romans. It was “also risky in a certain sense for his health, because he is old,” Lops added. Fr. Lops has been assigned to serve at the Basilica of St. Mary Major during the coronavirus lockdown in Italy. Though public Masses have been suspended throughout the diocese, the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major remains open for prayer, confessions, and communion for any Catholics who may request it, Fr. Lops said. (Read more.)

Love Is a Liturgical Act

From Francis Etheredge at Homiletic and Pastoral Review:

Prayer, like marriage and family life, needs the whole Christian life to live it; and, therefore, whatever our state in life, in a certain sense the whole Catechism is for each of us: single; married; religious, and ordained. Moreover, given the immense range of conversation that is possible between any two people, never mind the various members of a particular family, it is a wonderful resource in terms of stimulating all kinds of discussions. What is an angel? (cf. CCC, 325-336) How are we to understand the opening chapters of Genesis? (cf. CCC, 286, 289, 337, 375 etc.) How do we help or hinder the “Holy Spirit as the interior Teacher of Christian prayer”? (CCC, 2681) Why is it, for example, if prayer is an instantaneous communication with God, are we infatuated with the speed and complexity of human devices? If prayer is a powerful help in daily life, why do people prefer to write and dream about being superheroes, semi-mechanistic, and magicians? If prayer can reach across the universe in one immeasurably generous leap, then why not send a “prayer-gram”? It is not a matter, however, of being other than we are; and, if our reality is that we are “very little a family”³⁶, then let that be the beginning, or point of renewal, and not a terminus of hope and help. There are two, if not three, particular times of family prayer: meal-times; bed-times; and Sunday lauds, or the morning prayer of the Church. (Read more.)

And here is a podcast by Mr. Etheredge at the Catholic Current on the Stations of the Cross.

More articles by Francis Etheredge, HERE and HERE. And his books are HERE.

Some Churches in Rome Re-open

"Many shall be chosen, and made white, and shall be tried as fire: and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand. And from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred ninety days." Daniel 12: 10-11

"When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand. Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains: And he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take any thing out of his house: And he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days. But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the sabbath." Matthew 24:15-20

The Holy Father is re-opening some churches in Rome. This is good, since people were starting to talk about the prophecy of the "abomination of desolation" which can be defined thus:

The abomination of desolation, abomination that makes desolate, or desolating sacrilege (Hebrew: הַשִּׁקּוּץ מְשׁוֹמֵֽם, ha-shikkuts meshomem, Latin: abominatio desolationis) is a term found in the Book of Daniel and the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, which means literally "an abomination that desolates" or "an abomination that depopulates."

 We will continue to watch and wait, as churches close and mass is suspended around the world. But not in Rome. From RTE:

The Pope has re-opened some churches in Rome, defying political pressure to close all public buildings in the battle to curb the spread of coronavirus. The rare standoff between the 83-year-old pontiff and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's government came as Italy's death toll topped 1,000. Some of Rome's Catholic churches have now re-opened after Pope Francis voiced displeasure with the Italian authorities' push to shut them because of the coronavirus pandemic. Italians have been told to avoid going outside without a good reason and machine-gun toting soldiers now patrol city streets. But churches had stayed opened in the overwhelmingly Catholic country throughout what many now see as Italy's biggest crisis since World War II. 

That changed yesterday when the vicar of Rome Angelo De Donatis said he could no longer withstand government pressure and was closing all Catholic places of worship across the Italian capital, about 900 in total. Pope Francis' response was unusually swift and blunt. 

"Drastic measures are not always good," the Argentine-born pope said in his live streamed morning prayer on Friday morning. (Read more.)

"God Gives Holy Communion"

Taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome yesterday, the first day of the St. Joseph novena. Via Sr. Mary Joseph Calore.