SPIRITUAL COMMUNION: A STRATEGY FOR SURVIVAL IN A REIGN OF TERROR

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So from 11.59 pm tomorrow, if you're catching a bus, a train, a ferry or a plane anywhere in New Zealand you'll have to wear a mask: Ardern's Reign of Terror (Part Two) intensifies. 

In the US, Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden is saying, “The one thing we do know is these masks make a gigantic difference. I would insist that everybody out in public be wearing that mask.” 

Joe Biden is reckoned by many, by the way he talks, to be aphasic and this utterance bears the theory out. Yes, they must make a 'gigantic difference' but not quite the way Biden means. Masks make children of God - which we all are - into children of Mammon (of worldly interest or more specifically, political interest). 

On Thursday Prime Minister Ardern announced that "hundreds of millions of dollars" have been set aside by the Government to secure a COVID-19 vaccine for New Zealand when it becomes available - but "the specific amount cannot be disclosed due to commercial sensitivity." https://www.insider.com/new-zealand-coronavirus-vaccine-invest-could-wait-2020-8  The journos are conflicted: some say the 'hundreds of millions' are an international fund for finding a vaccine to which New Zealand is contributing; others say the 'hundreds of millions' are New Zealand's own contribution. Either way, it shows Ardern is desperate; she must know she's losing traction with the electorate.  

A rellie - an apolitical woman who works in supermarkets - told me a couple of days ago that "people are waking up. They're sick of the lies." But Ardern is intent on making more hay out of the fear she herself has created. Fear is her best tool.

It's fear that's got everyone masking up and muzzled. It's grotesque, it's dystopian. It's not just fear of COVID-19 but fear that having decided to mask up and put up, some physician or scientist (and there are plenty of them) will say masks are useless (which they are); but the mask is maintained, more in defence of one's pride than of health. 

My 'big' daughter has a reply ready for anyone who asks why she's not wearing a mask: "I've got a genetic condition." 

"Oh you poor thing, what's your condition?" 

"Intelligence."

 And if that line fails to raise a laugh she'll say, "That must be why you're wearing a mask. You don't share my condition."

It looks as if fear and pride are catching: why else, on Level Two, would the Church ban Sunday Masses in the Wellington Archdiocese?

Following the Government announcement today, 21 August, that the Alert Levels will not change over the weekend, Cardinal John Dew, Archbishop of Wellington, reminds everyone that "Vigil and Sunday Masses continue to be suspended while we are Alert Level Two, and that Weekday Masses and other activities can continue ...

Keep the social distance of two metres in each direction, and if needed the number of people present must be restricted to allow this to happen. ...

Communion is to be the Body of Christ only and it is only to be received on the hand.

Cardinal Dew means to say, surely, that "Communion is to be the Host only". Because when we receive the Precious Host we receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. When we receive the Chalice, we receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of Christ. That's Catholicism 101.

-There is to be NO sign of peace

Jolly good. 

and NO holy water

As if sanitiser confers the benefits of a sacramental..

The Sacrament of Reconciliation can be provided as long as social distancing or a physical barrier is in place.

Bring back the confessionals! In older churches they now usually serve as broom cupboards, but traditional confessionals are not just common sense; they make sorrow for sin and "a firm purpose of amendment" so much easier and a priest's comforting embrace for a weeping penitent - leading to satan-knows-what - impossible.

If we stay at Alert Level Two, Sunday Masses will not be celebrated in the Archdiocese, as in many parishes it is very difficult to ensure that only 100 people are present and to keep the necessary safety precautions in place.

But some parishes have managed it, your Eminence. Those large 'gathering spaces' in churches like that splendiferous new edifice in Kapiti (notice how 'gathering spaces' have grown in inverse proportion to the numbers in the church itself) would give much more glory to God if used for another 100 laity at Mass than for a cuppa and chat.

With sincere thanks for all you are doing to keep yourselves and everyone else safe in these times" - Cardinal John A Dew.

"He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved, because he had said to him the third time: Lovest thou me? And he said to him: Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee. He said to him: Feed my sheep"(Jn 21:17). 

Your Eminence, "Lovest thou Christ?" We, your flock, beg you: "Feed your sheep." 

We keep ourselves truly safe by being nourished by the Holy Eucharist. It's our souls you are charged with keeping safe, your Eminence, not our bodies. If it were a genuine pandemic - not a bogus plandemic - and our lives were truly endangered, our need for the Mass and to be fed with Christ's Body and Blood would be even more urgent. 

"All lives matter" and for a Catholic and a Christian it's a case of "all eternal lives matter".

Your Eminence, as Martin Luther King said in Letter from Birmingham Jail, quoting St  Augustine, "an unjust law is no law at all". King went on: 

“One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’

“Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

This socialist government's 'law' limiting attendance at Mass is unjust. So also is your application of the 'law' in Wellington Archdiocese, when you as a Prince of the Church exceed government requirements because they are 'very difficult'. 

And he said to all: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me (Lk 9:23).

Taking up our cross is 'very difficult', but it's what Our Lord specifies as the means of gaining the only life that really matters: the life that is eternal. The alternative is a death that is eternal. We must pray for our bishops and priests.

Your Eminence, 'in these times' of unprecedented hardship - which Our Blessed Mother has repeatedly warned us will only get much worse before they get better -  does it not seem to you unjust that while men and women with dependent children lose their livelihoods, not 'due to COVID restrictions' but due to the Prime Minister's restriction, you and your priests, who are guaranteeed an income no matter what, are now taking Sundays off? Sunday, the biggest day of your working week? Not only that, but you deny food to your faithful flock who refuse to risk sacrilege by receiving Communion in the hand.

A reader of this blog comments: 

"From all that I have read on Hand Communion in theology, canon law and the sacred doctrine of the saints, especially the 'Angelic Doctor' St Thomas Aquinas, it is abundantly clear that it should be forbidden except in a pandemic crisis and even then one should not touch the Sacred Host without wearing gloves, as St Thomas says. Only the ordained hands should touch the Most Blessed Sacrament.

"I think the hierarchy have taken advantage of the COVID-19 practice around no Communion on the tongue!

"I believe that Latin Catholics are misguided on this point as there are many refusing to receive Communion in the Novus Ordo Mass, which means they deprive themselves and Christ of communion with Him, when they don't need to. Anything that keeps you (from) receiving Holy Communion does not come from God. I think all I have said is in accord with holy prudence.

To this I reply that I believe Communion in the hand is forbidden always. New Zealand does not have a pandemic and the 'crisis' is entirely of the Government's making as part of the Left's global strategy to take global control in a form of Communism, as Our Lady has prophesied so often, in so many places throughout the world. 

Communion on the tongue is far more sanitary than Communion in the hand and as for depriving ourselves and Christ of communion with Him, Jesus Himself has said to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta that "the privation of Me excites the desire more, and in this excited desire the soul breathes God ... communions of most pure love - only of spirit, not of body; and since the spirit is more perfect ... Love is more intense" ('Book of Heaven' Vol 6: Dec5, 1903).

Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta

As you, your Eminence, refuse to feed your sheep, Christ invites us to go to Him, the Good Shepherd, to receive Him in spiritual Communion. 

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice has said:

“If you practise the holy exercise of spiritual Communion several times each day, within a month you will see your heart completely changed” (7 Secrets of the Eucharist, pp 78-79).

A prayer of spiritual Communion with Jesus can be made in a matter of seconds and repeated often throughout the day. The prayer is highly thought of by the Church since it is indulgenced (see Manual of Indulgences, 4th Edition, p.51). To make a spiritual communion you can simply say the following prayer in a recollected manner:

 "My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

I love You above all things,

and I desire to receive You into my soul.

Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally,

come at least spiritually into my heart.

I embrace You as if you were already there,

and I unite myself wholly to You.

Never permit me to be separated from You" - (Saint Alphonsus Liguori)

St Alphonsus Liguori