Pt. 2 - Culture Wars - An Often Unnoticed Accomp.of the Modernists

As for poetry, the real poet's intention is always centered or focused entirely upon the construction or the structure of words that he is making. Milton's Paradise Lost is a good example, because even though Milton himself announces his purpose to be "to justify the ways of God to men", what actually happens in reading the poem is almost magical. One is carried along and away by the powerful rhythms of the blank verse - into a world where ancient Greek and Roman gods and goddesses are so intertwined with the biblical characters as to form an incredibly coherent structure of sounds and meanings. (See this writer's paper on the real hero of Paradise Lost.) The Psalms, often thought of as poems, are really prayers - a most sublime rhetoric directed to God's Heart.



But to get around finally to why Hanukkah confuses the Jews - Mr. Cunningham does a fairly good job of telling us. It is because of those embarrasing Maccabees! Hanukkah is not one of the big three Jewish Holy Days. There are Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Hanukkah commemorates the re-dedication of the temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C. as a result of the fidelity and courage of the Maccabees as warriors. In the time of Antiochus IV, a true type of the Anti-Christ yet to come, the priestly (though non-Davidic) family of Mattathias bar Johannon took to the hills. This father had five sons, the most famous of whom was Judas - called "The Hammer". Resisting the decrees of Antiochus made the Maccabees outlaws. Ultimately, this "rag-tag band", under Judas Maccabeus, defeated the Syrians - freed Jerusalem and re-dedicated the Temple with a new altar. When the lamps were relit, there was enough oil for only one day, but the lamps continued to burn for eight days! This gave rise to the annual celebration or festival of lights. The typology is inescapable foreshadowing Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, of the True Davidic line - though thought to be one of those contemptible Nazarenes! The article by Mr. Cunningham is full of missed typologies like this one - but he does make his point.  However, embedded in his point is the most embarrassing analogy of all:



"According to the scholarly rabbi; Leonardi Bitran, a Jew...the books of the Maccabees are excluded from Tanakh - (the complete Hebrew bible), and their exploits are ignored by the Talmud. Bitran, like many Jews, downplays or ignores the lessons of fidelity and courage shown by the Maccabees and valued by Catholics.... (particularly the story of the mother and her seven sons gruesomely murdered for their faith by Antiochus (2 Mc 7)... (Rabbi Bitran) explains that the Maccabees revolt was an internecine conflict, that the "common Judean citizen was caught between pagan, secular Hellenism and fanatic Jewish fundamentalism...) Hanukkah should inspire all people to seek a sensible middle ground between the extremes of religious fundamentalism and total surrender to the surrounding culture. As someone has said of Pope Benedict's visits to synagogues, "How nice!" "How ecumenical!"



A holy priest exiled from Gethsemane here in Kentucky - to be replaced by Thomas Merton, once told me that a very holy priest told him (I suspect it was Dominican Father Garigou-Lagrange) that the Church must undergo the very same trials of up and down, glory and persecution, that the Chosen People are recorded as having experienced. This is because typology is also Prophecy! It is interesting also in this connection that the Protestant clergymen who composed the King James version of the Bible in the 17th century, also followed the Jewish exclusion of 1 and 2 Maccabees along with Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) and Baruch.

 

 

 
December 19th - 2012 --- "O Radix Jesse"

 

From Culture Wars - An Often Unnoticed Accomp.of the Modernists

 

There is an article in the December issue of Culture Wars that reveals as much about the mind-set of the Novus Ordo as it does about the Jews. W. Patrick Cunningham proposes to tell us "Why Hanukkah Confuses the Jews." Keep in mind that one of the primary goals of the modernists was to strip the Holy Scriptures of what Modernism, in its worship of history, considers to be extraneous or mythological elements added to history. This article in Culture Wars is a good example of the Modernists' success! 

 

What comes through in Cunningham's prose is the reduction of the Divine Rhetoric of Holy Scripture, to the dryest of historical chronicle. It is necessary to understand the three modes of discourse in order to appreciate this reduction. Incidentally, this goal and eventual achievement of the modernists is not mentioned in Pascendi, but is elaborated in the Syllabus Lamentabili (1907) and the earlier Syllabus of Errors (1864). Both Pius the IX and Pope St. Pius the X warned theologians of this destruction of the Divine supernatural aspect of Holy Scripture that began with the textual criticism of Greek and Roman classics in the Renaissance - that period of world history so mis-named as the "revival of learning"!

 

The three modes of discourse are: Scientific - Rhetorical and Poetic. There are no others. Every form of speech falls into one of these three modes. What is absolutely unique about our canonical scriptures is the fact that they are a divinely inspired, inerrant and infallible rhetoric. In Providentissimus Deus, Pope Leo XIII even uses the phrase, which is traditional, that the scriptures were "dictated by the Holy Spirit." And these same Holy Scriptures are entrusted to the one Church founded by Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ. She alone is to preserve them, guard them and protect them from erroneous and heretical interpretations. The last pope to do this in a particular case was Pope Urban VIII in the 1616-1633 Galileo case. (For a complete and orthodox description of this case and its history, see the monumental two volume work, Galileo Was Wrong, the Church Was Right, by Robert Sungenis and Robert Bennett.)

Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas gave us the model of scientific discourse. In this kind of speech, the author's intention is to make his mind and his speech conform as closely as possible to the truth about reality. The purpose of his speech is in reality. The purpose of rhetorical discourse is always in the person or persons being addressed. The end of the speech is in the hearer. This is the purpose of all of scripture, as St. Paul says: to teach, instruct, etc. And because the author is God Himself, using human instruments, this rhetoric is Divine. We know it is Divine, because there is always, even in the Wisdom Books, the poetic books, the historical books, and the Prophets, a dimension of the supernatural. This dimension of the divine rhetoric of Holy Scripture is most clearly manifested in typology. And it is this that is so conspicuous by its absence in Cunningham's article. It is true that what he gives us is good historical background - but any human history book could do this as well. It is the typology that makes the history of the Jewish people, from their origin in Adam's son Seth to Noah's son Sem, to the geneologies traced by St. Matthew and St. Luke, to be a divinely inspired, inerrant, infallible and therefore supernatural rhetoric. Nor is this supernatural dimension limited to typology. The Genesis account of Creation is as close to strictly scientific discourse as a divine rhetoric could come, because it contains all we need to know - given the discoveries of true science - permitted by God - about the material universe. One could say that Aristotle discovered the main principles in matter and Genesis showed their actuality in the narration of creation.

 

Genesis is Foundational

There is a great deal of “bible study” and emphasis upon “the bible” these days in the conciliar church, especially as represented by EWTN and its “Religious Catalogue” offerings. But I do not hear much about the book of Genesis or the seven deutoro-canonical books (Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus/Sirach, Baruch and 1 & 2 Machabees). Do all the new Catholic bibles contain all the Catholic books? Or do they omit or downgrade Genesis - just as the New Mass omits the prayer – Supra Quae Propitio, which retains the intrinsic connection between Abel, Abraham and Melchisedech? Genesis is foundational not only for giving us the Divine Revelation of exactly how God created all things in Six literal Days and the first Week of the world, but also for showing us how marriage, as willed by God, is central to the entire natural order, containing the Ten Commandments as natural law implicitly.

An analysis of Genesis 1-3 shows this clearly and Genesis 1-11 even more clearly. But there are exactly those parts of Genesis that the modernist conciliar church omits altogether in its bible study textbooks! But everything presupposes Creation - just as revealed in Genesis. This fact must be emphasized if the Catholic tradition is to be preserved.

 

The Two Catastrohic Events

 

Dec 25^th, 2012 – O Holy Night – O Night Divine

There are two catastrophic events that cannot be forgotten in any description of present day physics and chemistry, zoology or biology, geophysics or cosmology, because both of these events, in one way or another, had radically lasting effects on our present world. There are really three such events, but the first can be seen as a part of the second one.These events are: 1. The fall of the angels with the creation of hell in the midst of earth.2. The fall of Adam and Eve. 3. The universal deluge.And the necessary backdrop, as it were, - that which all three events presuppose, is the existence of God and His creation, ex nihilo and in toto, in Six Days, of the universe, of all things visible and invisible, in a state of perfection.Since the nine planets circling the sun today are not mentioned in the Creation narration of Genesis 1-3, but are mentioned in scriptives of events after the flood, I suggest that these planets, scarred as some are, and icy – as the rings of Saturn, may have taken their present positions and irregular orbits as a result either of the Fall of the Angels and the creation of hell – the cosmic upheavals caused by Adam’s fall, or the cosmic effects of the Universal Noachian Deluge.

 

These are but the most spectacular external effects of the Original Sin, of angels and of man.Two main parts to be noted: 1. The terrible – really incomprehensible malice of those sins and the offense given to so good and gracious a God.2. If the external effects were such, what must have been and continue to be the interior effects, both physical and spiritual?

Seeing the effects of sin also helps us to understand, somewhat, more fully, the perfection of the Original Creation, both cosmic and terrestrial, inanimate and animate.It should also help us to honor more devoutly, the perfection of Our Lord’s human nature and that of His Immaculate Mother, Mary.Neither one of them could suffer any internal disorder. Physical suffering had to be imposed upon them from without and with their consent.We cannot even imagine, therefore, the intensity and magnitude of the spiritual sufferings they both willingly endured for our redemption.These interior sufferings alone were of such magnitude, to have merited for our Blessed Lady the title of Co-Redemptrix; whereas Our Lord took upon Himself the maximum degree of human suffering that His perfect human nature could accept – all imposed upon His Sacred Body from without – so that every drop His most Precious Blood was shed – for our redemption.What He could not suffer – the spiritual effects of sin, it is for us to make up what is of necessity – lacking in His Passion, as St. Paul says.(Colossians 1:24) He could not, for example, suffer the nervous tensions, the interior passions and their somatic effects that the chronically angry person suffers, - the fomenting resentment, etc, of the chronic melancholic, the chronic mood swings of the bi-polar schizophrenic. These sufferings, when recognized for what the are, which is the effect and sources of sin and embraced with love, healing all vice with God's grace - in this way we can make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Or so it seems to me.

Only the biological scientist can accurately enumerate all the disorders in the cells that cause the countless diseases to which we are prone. These disorders are called mutations and they are increasing with time. (See the excellent work by Dr. James Sanford on the human genome and its heading toward extinction!) (Let Father Gruner and his associates pay more attention to what is going on in the sciences. (Hugh Owen of Kolbe Center distributes it.)

Christmas 2012 - Mary Immaculate - the Second Eve

Traditionalist Catholics must uphold and defend Mary's prerogatives as the Second Eve because it is quite common to hear them denied because of the modernist "experts" in biblical exegesis. The most compelling reasons for Mary's prerogatives, both from reason and from faith, are given us in Genesis 3:15-16. We must also add Genesis 3:17-24. The reasons are these: Tradition teaches us that Adam's sin was of such malice - that only a perfect Man - a divinely perfect Man could sufficiently atone for it. Therefore, as Chalcedon and other councils teach infallibly, Our Lord Jesus Christ had a perfect human nature - hypostatically that is - immutably united to the Divine Nature of the Word, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity. Therefore, in Jesus Christ there are two natures, a divine and human nature, hypostatically united to the One Divine Person of the Word or in St.John's Greek, the Logos, which also signifies wisdom, as in the biblical book of that name. Because of His Divine Nature and its relation to His human nature, Our Lord could not possibly suffer the consequences of the Original Sin that God specified to Adam in Genesis 3. These had, of necessity, to be inflicted upon Him from without.

 

When we humans suffer in any way, even from common hunger, thirst and especially any disease, even the most common - such as a cold, it is always because of some internal disorder or deficiency in our cells; a weakness or otherwise. It could not have been so with Our Lord. When He asked the Samaritan woman to give Him to drink from the well, if He really felt thirst, it was only because He willed it. There was no disorder or deficiency in His bodily cells. They were always in perfect balance and full strength. Is this going too far? If so, please correct me. But I think of the logical consequences, also. Our Lord's human nature was indeed, truly human, but it was like that of Adam before the fall; only divinely so.

And since Our Blessed Lady is the Second Eve, then she too must have been preserved from conception and in conception, from every taint of the consequences of the Original Sin laid specifically upon Eve, namely, the pains of childbirth and a somewhat "inordinate" subjection to her husband. The most splendid exposition of Our Blessed Lady's Immaculate human nature is, of course, that given by the Venerable Mary of Agreda, glory of the Franciscan's, after St. Francis himself. And so, as true Traditionalists, we must defend as strongly as we possibly can, these wonderful prerogatives of Mary Immaculate, so shockingly denied by many, if not most Novus Ordo-ites.

Kyrie, Eleison!

Perhaps the word "inordinate" is improper. It is certain, though, that before the Fall, the relation of Eve to Adam was much more that of a helper or companion, as God indicates in Genesis 2:18 and 20. Among the animals, Adam could find no "helper like himself." However, in the last analysis, Eve is still hierarchically lower in the finely-tuned scale of beings, since she was made from Adam's own body, flesh and bone. Physically and mentally, then, she is subordinate to man.

What, exactly then, was that consequence of the Original Sin, that seems to demote woman yet more than she originally was? Whatever it was, Immaculate Mary did not suffer it in her relationship with St. Joseph. In her, St. Joseph found the perfect helper. And, of course, Our Immaculate Mother Mary did not suffer any of the discomforts or pains of childbearing and giving birth.

I am told that the same holy Jesuit, Henry James Coleridge, who wrote The Return of the King, on the signs of the Last Days, also wrote a series of very beautiful meditations on the contemplations of our Blessed Lady during the nine months of her pregnancy. Like our Lord, physical sufferings could come to Our Lady, only from outside her own body. Therefore, her title of Co-Redemptrix must designate unimaginable, spiritual sufferings - just as the holy Simeon prophesied - "and thine own soul a sword shall pierce..." (Luke 2:35) Not a blemish on Her Immaculate body - but a sword piercing her soul...

I am not as conversant as I should be with the City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda, and so I respectfully refer to those who are: Our Divine Lord, even as yet in His un-glorified Body, must have passed from Our Lady's womb much as He passed through the walls of the tomb on Easter morning. St. Thomas would see such a similarity as eminently fitting, even in the contrast of immaculate flesh with the pristine stone of the rich man's tomb. This may be in Ven. Mary of Agreda. Let us keep these precious truths alive at all costs!

Evolution (Cosmic-Terrestrial) and the Natural Order

On Day One of Creation Week, God created and established, for all time, the entire natural order. I call it the Order of Creation, as opposed to the Order of Generation. In this latter Order of Generation, the substantial forms that God created on each of the Six Days, began to function.

Here we must reflect upon the all important distinction between form and function. Form, must of necessity, precede, i.e., come before, function, both chronologically, in time, and metaphysically, transcending time in the nature, both existentially and essentially. A nature cannot function, unless and until its form – its structure is reasonably intact. For example, I eat my meals at table with a black woman who has no legs. Obviously, her form is severely impaired and even when she can no longer function at all, physically, her formal nature, which is existentially and essentially rational (intellect and will), her form remains intact. She is still defined as human. Here I have jumped from the pre-fall, innocent state of nature to the post-fall state of fallen nature, wounded by sin but not corrupted in the Calvinist sense. God’s good creation cannot be destroyed in its essential goodness as in the Order of Creation and the entire natural order, even in the order of generation.

The physical sciences tell us much about this fallen state of nature as they study diseases and genetic mutations. (See Sanford on Genetic Entropy…) Even in the natural order, by our very finitude, we are doomed to extinction – except for the Redeeming Nature of the Supernatural Order of Divine Grace. This latter enters into the Creation Week only on Day Six, with the Creation of Adam and Eve. The Hierarchical Order of the Angels belongs (hypothetically), to Day One. The angels were created in Grace but not confirmed in Grace until after their testing. All of which took place prior to Day Six, since Lucifer, the chief of the fallen angels, for whom God created Hell, was allowed to enter Paradise or the Garden of Eden in order to tempt Adam and Eve. These events demonstrate how very integrated and inter-related are all the truths of faith and of reason.

The Evolutionary World View destroyed the truth about the natural order. And remember, Grace builds on nature; and Faith is necessary for the perfection – but not the Created Goodness – of the natural order which includes reason. We are natural beings before we are raised to the supernatural order of Divine Grace by the sacraments of the church. In the Old Testament times and in Christian times where the words of the gospel have not yet reached, the natural order may yet provide a means of salvation by the operations of Actual Graces. (See St. Thomas on Baptism and on Invincible Ignorance.)

Forgotten Truths - Part Two

Another forgotten truth is the loving concern and obligation of the Pope - as the good shepherd - to protect the flock of the faithful from harm by condemning and extirpating by clear, positive corrections, all errors, whether in the natural order of the physical sciences, or in the supernatural order of theology. The Church must watch over the conclusions of the physical sciences as well as the speculations of theologians, to protect the faithful from attacks on faith from any source. Model examples of such watchful guardianship in the past are the Galileo case under Pope Urban the VIII, and the Montini judgements against Teilhard de Chardin, under Pope John XXIII. Examples from medieval and earlier times are too numerous to mention and historical research should expose them for our edification and enlightenment.

Another forgotten truth is the magnificent state of original justice and innocence with its preternatural gifts, all of which Adam and Eve, after enjoying for some unknown length of time, foolishly forfeited, preferring the false, counterfeited, lying promises of the fallen angel Lucifer. The perfect human nature and the perfectly suited environment of Eden, were all of such a magnificence - though short of the state of glory, that we can scarcely imagine the happiness our First Parents experienced before they sinned through lack of love for their Creator. Our Lord told a holy, victim soul of the 20th century, that what offends God in all sin is the absence of love. And so it was with Adam and Eve. Their prideful disobedience was above all - a failure of love for our all good and merciful Creator. There is no way in the world, that anyone, even the most convinced Catholic evolutionist, could reconcile the State of Original Justice and Innocence, enjoyed for some time in a real environmental Paradise, with the population of hominids, living on a "prehistoric" earth that eventually produced a hominidal "Adam and Eve". Much work here for theologians to describe the physical traits of paradise and of the real Adam and Eve that lived there absolutely free from all pain and disease, even of the "common cold" or toothache. No such thing before the fall from grace and love for God, their Creator - what ingratitude! How is it possible to fall from such a height? Such a great degree of grace? What a warning to all of us!

Perhaps the first of all forgotten or denied truths, at least theologically, is that Creation is not a process, but an a-temporal act producing, as first infinitely powerful cause, the effects that are His creatures, first substantial forms existing in/with time and place, the universe with Earth as its center. All follows from this central first act or series of acts in the six days of Creation, as narrated in Genesis I. Is there an analogy of the mass with the actual Creation on Day One and following, especially of mankind on Day Six? Transubstantiation is not a process. It is an act, an a-temporal act, producing a substantial change in the substance of the bread (wheat) and wine (grapes), but not any change in its accidents. The substance of bread and of wine becomes the real presence where He was not before. By an act of the substantial Being of Christ, the Word of God, second person of the Blessed Trinity - Body - Blood - Soul - Divinity - Human - Divine Natures in one Divine Person, in a state of glorified immolation, a mystery of the continual sacrifice.

The miraculous of the Divine Sacrifice: 1. Change of substance of bread and wine into Sacred Humanity united with Divinity. 2. The accidental elements of bread and wine remain visibly unchanged. 3. A third miracle is that the elements of bread and wine do remain unchanged because if they obeyed the nature of the Divine Sacrificial Being of God, they would exhibit both the glorified and the sacrificial marks of Christ's Eucharistic or new sacramental Being. But they do not. They remain suspended with no substantial form in which to ???  - unless it may be said they return to the last substantial form of the inanimate body of the universe.   

But this is the miracle - the elements do not return to the inanimate state of the universe where they would quickly corrupt, but rather they remain as if in adoration of the Divine Sacramental Being suspended in the immediate atmosphere. That they are not immediately glorified and sacrificially immolated showing blood and flesh is the third miracle (as happened at Luciano).

Forgotten Truths - Part One

Most notable and important differences between Genesis and the Apocalypse:


Genesis, from Chapter One to the end of 2nd Machabees is plain, literal-historical narrative. This style-genre - form does not preclude the existence of Types - signifying figures and events to take place in the Ages of the Church, since all of the Old Testament is but a grand , detailed preparatory drama - true history in preparation for the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity. It is/was for this one central event of all history that the Jewish people were chosen to give physical generation to the Messiah - Redeemer - Second Adam, and to Mary, Mother of God, the second Eve. And for this, that the synagogue was pre-destined to foreshadow and concede by fulfillment, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. St. Peter and the apostle St. Paul and his disciples, Bishops and followers, were the first Jews to truthfully and authentically fulfill the vocation of the chosen people by becoming the first Catholic Christians, the Body of Christ in time.


The Apocalypse, on the other hand, is a historical - mysteriously at times - incomprehensibly symbolical - becoming clear only as its prophetic nature is fulfilled in time, in the history of the church and in the world. Nero and the Roman Emperors, determined to wipe out Christianity, were types of the Anti-Christ, so that even in Church history there are types and their anti-types or fulfillments. Just as the martyrs of the first three centuries will be fulfilled in prophecy as the Church is brought to an apparent extinction and buried in the tomb with Christ as the 14th station of the cross heralds the Restoration of the Church as typified by Constantine resurrecting the Church from the catabombs. Also, unlike historical, temporal-chronological order, the Apocalypse presents things and events all at once, as seen from eternity, as God sees them. Thus, the seven churches are not presented in a chronological - but in an a-temporal order, as representing the Church as manifesting such typical characteristics at different times or at some time or other in history.

The Angels and the Elements - Part Three

Archbishop Lefebvre reveals a hidden blindness and/or contrivance when he singles out 3 or 4 doctrines denied by Vatican II. A true analysis, rhetorical, logical and theological, will readily reveal the evolutionary essence of both spirit and letter of that evil council based on false sciences! The “science, falsely so-called” of 1 Timothy 6:20 and the operation of error - to believe lying because they did not love the truth! (2 Thess. 2:10). St. Paul and St. Pius X have warned members of the church today, but they have not heard nor heeded.

Kyrie Eleison.

There remains so much more to be revealed concerning similarities and differences between the Angels and the Elements, both created on Day One of Creation Week and also playing significant roles in all that happened thereafter. But it is for teams of theologians, true sons of St. Thomas and the Church, to refute and replace the synthesis of all heresies with a new synthesis of all truths – restoring both reason and faith to their rightful places in the hierarchy of the sciences and of being.

Joan Carroll Cruz has much on the angels and music, including the voices of the angels, that is, their singing. Because they are completely spiritual beings – when they appear either in physical-material forms, such as bodies in appropriate clothing, as speaking and/or as singing, they are – of metaphysical necessity,“fabricating”, as St. Thomas puts it – those physical-material forms, from the inanimate elements or accidents of some original, substantial form. Wherefore, when the angels sound the trumpets or sound (speak) or sing in human-like voices or employ human breath (lung power) to sound a trumpet, they are necessarily “fabricating” these physical-material – quantitative, accidental forms from the elements– that is from the ultimate particles, atoms and molecules that constitute the ultimate material “stuff” of all corporeal things. When one considers the range of physical things – from the electric current (electrons) to atomic and molecular structures composing such common things as salt and sugar, one can form some notion of the range of power that any angel – from the highest to the lowest in the domain of the good and the wicked, that all angels have over the physical universe.

It is thus no surprise nor is it beyond the comprehension of reason – human reason. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15: 38ff) is a key scriptural reference for this subject. In verse 39, St. Paul specifies the differences between not just the formal principles but also the material principles of men, of beasts, of birds, of fishes and then of celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars) and terrestrial, (men, beasts, birds and fishes).

Then he passes on to what may come closer to the substantial form when he specifies that one is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of stars, and not only that, but “star differs from star in glory”, and each star has its own name. (1 Cor. 1:41 - and in the psalms.)

Now it is important to realize that here in verse 42 of 1 Cor. 1, St. Paul passes from the physical-material to the glorified spiritual of the resurrection; whereas I am trying to determine the limits of the merely - purely physical material. As St. Paul reminds us -- first there was and still is for the sciences, the merely natural…of the earth, earthly. (1 Cor 1:46)

　

　

 

The Angels and the Elements - Part Two

In all the corporeal beings, the formal principle is material. This is eminently true of the Body of the Universe. On Day One of Creation Week – the First Week of the World – God created the Heavens and the Earth – Water and Light. These elemental beings constitute the Material Body of the Universe whose formal principle gives mass, i.e., quantity (and thus all qualities) – to the elements, particles, etc – and arranges all things in a spherical and hierarchical order – something the modern scientist utterly misses.

Back to the angels and the letters of Gemma Galgani, locked in a drawer of a chest of drawers.

All man-made things are accidental forms of some original substance – the proto-type of which was created during the Six Days of Creation Week. Thus, the wooden chest of drawers in which Gemma Galgani’s letter was locked, was originally the substantial form of a kind of plant, created on Day Three. The wood of the chest was an accidental form of the original plant kind/substantial form. And it was wholly material in nature – therefore particulate and quantitative. These quantities giving rise to all the other properties of the wood, now dead or rather inanimate material. Many confuse substance with state of matter. Therefore, because wood, and all artifacts made therewith, is a solid, many believe it must be a substance. But physical analysis reveals an atomic structure in which the atoms are very densely packed together, giving rise to hardness, color and all other qualities of the various types of wood. But however hard the wood, it is still atomically porous and therefore penetrable. And it is this power of penetrating matter that the angel possesses. The miraculous nature of the angel’s act of retrieving the letter from the locked drawer lies in the fact that he destroyed nothing in the process. Thus the angelic powers over material forms are truly miraculous – even though they can be explained up to a certain point. And the angelic powers can never reach to the substantial form of any created being in order to change it. This is metaphysically and theologically impossible – and herein lies the absolute impossibility of the so-called theory or “law” of evolution. This cosmic/terrestrial evolution is Lucifer’s masterpiece, his greatest and most successful lie. Pope St. Pius the X called it Modernism and the “synthesis”or compendium of all heresies.

It is truly the greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon the church and the world - all in the name of science. But there is true science, knowledge of things in their causes, as Aristotle defined it. And then there is a false science, which is really not science at all – but ideology. Man-invented or imagined ideas imposed upon reality and passing for science. This is what evolution is – along with all the other false ideologies that the modernist heresy has spawned. In Pope St. Pius the X’s 1907 encyclical Pascendi, he defined modernism – as comprising three false philosophies. One being Agnosticism, the second being Immanentism, and the third – their “principal doctrine” – the “law”of evolution by which everything must change or die. And it was this false “law” of evolution that inspired, motivated and permeated all the doctrines of the Second Vatican Council.

Delete Reply Reply All Forward Move Spam Actions Next Previous

The Angels and the Elements

In her book on Angels and Devils (Tan, 1999) –Joan Carroll Cruz tells of the power the angels, both good and evil, have over matter – or the material-atomic structure of physical-corporeal beings, both animate and inanimate. This is especially evident in the case of St. Gemma Galgani (1878-1903), and the letters she wrote to her spiritual director. To test that the letters were really delivered by a spiritual being, twice they were locked in a secret place – one a chest of drawers. (p.56) This latter proves something both about the angels' power and about the structure of “matter” or corporeal being:

Matter is particulate – that is to say –it is composed of particles. These particles, however variously they may be described by the physicist and chemist, whether atomic or otherwise, there is a certain structure currently recognized as atomic. This atomic structure answers very well to Thomistic principles of metaphysics – when one sees all matter as ultimately quantitative. And this is true according to Aristotle’s nine categories or properties of substance. All of the elements are measurable and therefore quantitative and therefore material, so that quantity or measurability becomes a sure and certain criterion of physical materiality.

A digression on the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson is said to be a force-carrying particle producing a field that permeates the universe and gives mass to all other particles. (See Creation Illustrated, Fall 2012, Vol. 19, no.3, page 24) This is a good physical explanation of material being, including light (particle or wave) and substantial form, because the Higgs Boson is an implicit acknowledgement of the metaphysical necessity for substantial FORM and the law of nature that FORM precedes function. All particles are accidental forms or properties of some substance. This is the metaphysical necessity that the Higgs Boson represents but does not accurately describe, although the modern scientist admits it must be a field. But it cannot be a particle as all the accidental forms are. It must be a higher principle of matter itself, namely the formal principle of a hylemorphic entity. All corporeal beings are hylemorphic in structure, that is, they are composed of matter and form, two causes that are also principles. Only in mankind, among corporeal beings, is the formal principle purely spiritual – being the rational soul where powers are intellect and will, spiritual powers that survive the death of the body, though in an imperfect, that is, incomplete way.

Main Principles of Creation

Creation is an Act of God. It is never a Process. Processes happen only after the Act of Creation. Form precedes Function. Creation is not a Miracle but the establishment of the Order that all miracles presuppose.

Note: Discussion of the impossibility of a state of pure nature (see the work of Garigou-Lagrange, O.P. on Grace) ---- brings up the thorny issue of salvation without baptism by water or the sacrament of baptism which is received only by water. Pope Pius IX discussed invincible ignorance and the natural law in Quanta Cura and left the issue to the mercy of God. (See this writer's paper on Conversations with...Father Feeney.)

Invincible ignorance does not save according to St. Thomas - only faith - and in the case of "savages" - never reached by missionaries, the observance of the natural law and desire to do God's will may suffice for salvation. Check my papers and St. Thomas on this.

Natural and Supernatural - Part Three

And it is this natural order in us - an order according to which mothers, for example, instinctively protect their children - even at the expense of their own lives; according to which, also, human beings know instinctively that abortion is a crime against nature - as is homosexuality and all the other sins against the ten commandments. Children know instinctively that lying is wrong. The intellect was made for truth, as the will for good. This is the natural order with its natural laws - an order of human nature that survives beneath the wounds of the consequences of the Original Sin. And here, precisely, is where the great evil of the evolutionary worldview manifests itself.

For, in the evolutionary worldview there is no natural order of goodness surviving beneath the state of sin and requiring in an absolute manner, the sacraments of baptism that only Christianity can supply, because of Christ the Redeemer. The evolutionary worldview reduces us all to the status of only hominids that have only slightly evolved beyond the chimpanzee or gorilla stage of evolution. The only “natural order” – including natural laws of morality, that evolution will acknowledge, are those to be found in this pre-human stage of hominidal existence. This is why we have “martyrs” to the cause of evolution like Jane Goodall and the whale lover, Diane, whose last name I am not sure of…- and why bestiality is on the rise. And why abortion is legal and commonly recognized as “natural” – whereas it is the most un-natural of crimes!

Natural and Supernatural - Part Two

However, I must say at the outset, because I am writing mainly from memory, with no access to my library, I beg the reader to check on everything I say. There is no consensus of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church about precisely when God raised Adam to the supernatural order of Divine Grace. But it is certain – according to St. Thomas, that Adam (and so also Eve, though later) was given the Divine Life of supernatural grace concurrently with his creation in the natural order. And this is the crucial distinction that must be honored if theology is to avoid not only error, but heresy. And so, since this data of theology based on Divine Revelation, tells us that the supernatural order of divine grace, sanctifying grace in particular, and all other types of actual, efficacious, sufficient, - graces are created participations in God’s own Life, it is obviously incorrect to speak of the Creator as if He were also some kind of created participant in His own Life. This subject arises in Christology – concerning Our Divine Lord’s Human Nature; but this does not concern us here. What is so very important to understand is the distinction between the natural and the supernatural orders as created by God in the beginning.

While it is absolutely true now, since the fall of Adam, in our state of fallen nature, there is no such thing as a purely natural state in human life. As fallen human beings, every single one of us, including the most remote member of the most remote and “primitive” tribe in the as yet undiscovered regions of the world – every one is either in a state of grace or a state of sin, as of Original Sin, as are babies until baptized, and anyone unbaptized. At the same time, as the theology of St. Thomas teaches, there are still in us the workings of our human nature as God created it. Although our intellect has been darkened, and will weakened, and our nature inclined to evil as a consequence of Adam’s Original Sin, there remains in us enough of the original natural order to enable us, indeed, to oblige us to acknowledge the existence in us of the original nature in such vestigial form that even the child, before coming to the age of reason, recognizes certain things as bad and certain other things as good. The most ancient pagan religions possessed this natural law to do good and avoid evil.

Natural and Supernatural

There is a very common usage of the word supernatural by both protestants and Catholics that is not Catholic at all and that probably originated in the literary studies of C.S. Lewis, beloved by protestants and Catholics equally (this present writer excepted). It usually occurs in a context referring to Creation by God. Here is a quotation from Father Robert Spitzer’s New Proofs for the Existence of God, (Eerdmans, 2010):

“evidence of the extremely high improbability of an anthropic universe (one that will allow the emergence of any life form), implying the possibility of supernatural design…”(p.4, number 2)

Another occurrence is on page 13 – where Father Spitzer quotes with complete approval, the words of the Nobel prize winning physicist Arno Penzias:

“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.” Again, on page 22, we have this statement by Father Spitzer:

“We should begin by clarifiying what science can really tell us about a beginning of the universe and supernatural causation….” – and finally, on page 23: “These seemingly highly improbable conditions – (which are sometimes called “cosmic coincidences”or “anthropic coincidences”) can imply an element of supernatural fine-tuning, if no satisfactory naturalistic explanation can be found for them. This evidence is discussed in Chapter Two.”

In all fairness to Father Spitzer and to a definite shift in his usage in the rest of the book, of which more later, it must be emphasized that he is speaking from within the evolutionary world view which insists upon its naturalism. This encourages, therefore, the usage of super-natural, if one wishes to make the case for some utterly transcendent Cause and Being. And Father Spitzer does this in much later pages of his book, especially in Chapter Six and the sub-section on causality. His shift of terms is noticeable, for example, on page 45, where he states: “This transcendent cause of the universe may also be the cause of time itself..”

Well, of course this transcendent cause is the cause of all things and there is much to be said about time and also about the 13.7 billions of years that Father Spitzer accepts uncritically. But for the moment, it may be useful to make some points about the usage of the term supernatural.

The Remnant Speaks

Refer to the “Holy Land”, by Timothy J. Cullen, in the Remnant, November 25, 2012, pp.11-12.

Mr. Cullen is more of a Catholic creationist, probably, than he realizes, when he calls, as did Holy Ghost Father Denis Fahey, many years ago in The Church and Farming, for Catholics to return to the land. In fact, everything presupposes creation and especially resonant of the original days of Creation Week is the nature of the land, of the earth, out of which, literally, God formed all other corporeal beings except the celestial bodies of Day Four. But notice, not only is the land and earth man’s special place over which he has been given dominion, (Gen.1:26), but far more intimately connected with his very nature, his body part is from the slime of the earth (Gen.2:7) – which indicates the predominant necessity in the human composite for water, perhaps even more so than in other living creatures.

But please, come with me just for a moment to Genesis One and examine just what God tells us He did on Day One. Please don’t pass out in horror! I am not a deluded, fanatical "fundamentalist”,unless you will also include St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Gregory (all of them! – all of the Gregory’s). St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, et alia; for I am a Traditionalist in the fullest sense, following the great teachers of the Church from the beginning. So please allow me to point out some indications that I suggest God tells us He created on Day One.

Genesis One tells us that on Day One God created the Heavens and the Earth. And the earth was covered with water. This plainly is a revealing of the greater part of the entire inanimate domain of matter. But the earth was enveloped in darkness and so very quickly (probably instantaneously), God said “Let there be light” and light was made. Here in these first three verses of Genesis One is almost all of Catholic cosmology. And the point I wish to make about the land and it’s intrinsic, essential goodness, even “holiness” – is the fact that God used the inanimate elements of earth to form all the living creatures, and for man, it seems, an abundance of water, because in Genesis 2:7, God specifies that He made man, not only first of all in His own Image and Likeness, specifying most particularly man’s soul, but from “the slime of the earth” – He formed his bodily substance.

So the land of earth is very special for us humans, not only as having been given the stewardship of dominion over it (Gen.1:26) –but also, and more intimately, as being the very constituent of our bodily nature. No wonder we have an almost innate love for this land of ours, what becomes in time the patria – the homeland – the fatherland or motherland of nations and the true basis of all patriotism.

These are just a few of the thoughts brought about in me by reading the article of Mr. Cullen on “The Holy Land.”

 

Final Part of The Material-Formal Cause of the Body of the Universe

Finally, two more important points. One being that fermions, the family of particles to which the electrons belong, have proven impossible to discretize. This is a very strong factor in favor of the basically electrical nature of the substance of the body of the universe. The second point would be that fermions have a very special property and that is chirality. It concerns the spin and force of the electronic particles/waves. In biology, chirality is called handedness. It is a core feature of the standard model of physics. Tong says nothing of chirality being peculiar to living forms. But he concludes his article with these words:

"The standard model, based on three interlinking forces, seems to be an arbitrary construction. It is only when thinking about the chiral fermions that its true beauty emerges. It is a perfect jigsaw puzzle, with the three pieces locked together in the only manner possible. The chiral nature of fermions in the standard model makes everything fit together." (p.49)

But what of the famous Higgs Boson, the so-called "God-particle"? - David Tong says:

"The building blocks of our theories are not particles but fields: continuous fluid-like objects spread throughout space. The electric and magnetic fields are familiar examples, but there are also an electron field, a quark field, a Higgs field and several more. The objects that we call fundamental particles are not fundamental. Instead they are ripples of continuous fields." (p.49)

The fact that particles mutate into other particles when they interact also challenges the basic nature of particle-matter rather than continuous matter. But the problem is solved when one sees the substance as continuous, electric in nature and as substance containing the physical and probably mathematical laws that govern all the mutations and interactions of the atomic structures which are discrete and accidents both proper and less than proper, of the higher substance - the body of the universe. There is much more to be said about this subject, even from this one very provocative article and its references.

I beg all Catholic scientists seriously to consider this application of Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical principles to the major problem of modern physical science. For how much longer can the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland, go on smashing protons in search of an ultimate particle to explain all the other particles? Such a search is in vain. The only thing that can explain the marvelous order and unity of atomic actions, reactions and interactions is some higher material substance: the first of all created beings: the universe, a "marriage" of heaven and earth, the one body of the world we inhabit with angelic beings who preside over the celestial bodies surrounding our earth and also with the Principalities and Powers - especially who have special guardianship of our earth with its empires, nations, cities, towns and villages - even hamlets like Fatima.

This is the universe over which Our Lady reigns as Queen with Jesus Christ - Word of God - Her Son and Our King - May They be blessed forever!

The Material-Formal Cause of the Body of the Universe-#Three

 

This is a precise description, in terms of modern physics, of how the proper accidents of any substance (or substantial form), obey the laws created in them by God, and thus proceed to function according to the substantial form (nature) of the substance. I love and rejoice that Professor Tong uses the concept of obedience in his description of the atoms as they obey the fixed mathematical rules inscribed in the substantial form of the body of the universe. This obedience is true of all the elements (atomic structures). They obey the fixed mathematical rules of the substantial forms into which enter; plant, animal, human. In this way they climb, as it were, the ladder of the hierarchy of being and even mirror, as I like to think, in their very humble and completely material way, the completely spiritual hierarchy of the celestial choirs of angels from Seraphim to guardian angels, from the fiery plasmic elements down to the most lowly of the minerals, such as lead. And all of this God created, ex nihilo and in toto on Day one of Creation Week.

If the higher principles of Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics are followed, the disputes over time and space will be solved. For example, the dimensions erroneously linked with time as an absolutized space-time continuum are really two proper accidents of the body of the universe. Time is essentially related to motion, and most specifically, to the motions of the heavenly bodies: the sun, moon and stars, (especially the constellations). Space is more realistically termed place, as it is in Aristotle's categories. And the theories of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot bear this out. His maps are all of very real places.

Computer simulations of cosmic models are able only to perform with the discrete-particle type of basic structure, and so, David Tong is forced to conclude that "we do not know the answer..." as to whether the underlying, really governing structure is discrete or continuous. Metaphysical principles seem to favor the continuum native of matter as substantial with the discrete particles as accidents in the Aristotelian sense. In the last analysis, I believe we will be able to say that both Plato and Aristotle were correct. Plato held for the ultimately mathematical nature of matter, but it is Aristotle's analysis of motion that would favor the continuous.

 

The Material- Formal Cause of the Body of the Universe #Two

 

The present point of emphasis is that here in an article of Scientific American, a professor of Theoretical Physics at Cambridge,  England, is describing for us, very precisely and beautifully, the material cause; but this material cause only of the universal substance with its accidents of the body of the universe. This body of the universe is also the first of all secondary causes, created on Day One of Creation week.

With these facts in mind, listen to the words of David Tong, Cambridge physicist:

"Wilhelm Oswald...pointed out that the laws of thermodynamics refer only to continuous quantities such as energy. Similarly, Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism describes electric and magnetic fields as continuous. Max Planck, who would later pioneer quantum mechanics,...Despite the great success that the atomic theory has so far enjoyed, ultimately it will have to be abandoned in favor of the assumption of continuous matter." (p.48) Two important points here:

1. Discrete or digital matter will never be abandoned, as Tong later shows, because all accidents are beautifully discrete and..... 2). even continuous matter is still quantitative; in fact, measurable.


What makes it stable, even immutable, is its form. The formal principle (and thus causes) of the universe is its sphericity within which all realities are hierarchically arranged. The first and fourth ways of St. Thomas' demonstrations of God's existence manifest these two formal principles of the substantial form of the universe. But for all corporeal beings, of which the universe is the first, quantity or measurability is the very essence of its being along with its spherical-hierarchical form.

The next quote to give is the following: "The integers labeling chemical elements - are objective....The integers in atomic physics are here to stay...Another example occurs in spectroscopy - the study of light emitted and absorbed by matter. An atom of a particular type can emit only very specific colors of light, resulting in a distinctive fingerprint for each atom. Unlike human fingerprints, the spectra of atoms obey fixed mathematical rules. And these rules are governed by integers...But in the functioning of the system, see what happens. Tong says it is a little bit of mathematical magic...Take the hydrogen atom: the electron orbits the proton at very specific distances. These fixed orbits translate into the spectrum of the atom. The atom is analogous to an organ pipe, which produces a discrete series of notes even though the air movement is continuous." (p.48)

Tong is obliged to describe the integers in terms of evolutionary, emergent quantities. But form precedes function, the entire body or system is present, by creation ex nihilo and in toto, with all parts present, before functional processes begin, and therefore: "In systems such as the hydrogen atom, the processes described....mold discreteners from underlying continuity. (p.48)

 

The Material-Formal Cause of the Body of the Universe

Without using the proper scholastic terminology, Dr. David Tong, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge in England, describes the Material-Formal cause of the body of the universe. He uses the terminology of modern physics which readers of Scientific American may be assumed to understand without any difficulty. And so, his article in the December 2012 issue of this magazine, “The Unguantum Quantum”, is truly a breakthrough for Catholic cosmology. The sub-title of the article (on page 48) – sums it up: 


“Quantum theorists often speak of the world as being pointillist at the smallest scales. Yet a closer look at the laws of nature suggests that the physical world is actually continuous – more analog than digital.” (p.48).

David Tong understands that this debate about the ultimate nature of the material world – “is one of the oldest in physics; whereas the atomists conceived of reality as discrete, other Greek philosophers – such as Aristotle, thought of it as a continuum…”

Now to put it all in a philosophical nutshell, and in Aristotelian-Thomistic terms, the continuous nature of the material universe describes the substance, while the discrete, atomic structures describe the accidents or properties of the physical universe.  I am assuming that the universe, as a whole, (the totum of Lateran IV) was created ex nihilo and in toto on Day One of the Genesis account; the Heavens and Earth, water and light (Genesis 1:1-3).  This is the body of the universe; a wholly material substance, with no soul but the formal aspect which is circular or spherical and manifested itself immediately in the temporal rotations of light and the concentric spheres around the central earth.  As St. Thomas frequently insists, matter never exists without form.  And material substances, therefore, never exist without their proper accidents.  What David Tong is describing in physical terms is the substantial but material nature of the universe.  This substance, which includes the Prime Matter of the scholastics, is continous in nature, thus always in motion, and, indeed, the very nature of motion which requires (1) an agent, and (2) time. 

 

The first and always necessary agent is God the Creator - our Triune God, Father, Word and Holy Spirit, all explicitly present in the opening verses of Genesis.  God is Creator ex nihilo and in toto only in the beginning.  Thereafter, He is necessarily present as Governor and Sustainer-Maintainer - (the 5th Way of St. Thomas). 

Mission Statement for this Blog - Part Two

The Importance of Creation and the Church - Part Two

God said as much when He commanded the animals and humankind to “increase and multiply.” He did not say this to the plants because, as He explained, their seed is within them and they reproduce without the copulation of individual plants, as with animals and man. The point to grasp is that there must be chickens before eggs; there must be cats before we can have kittens, dogs before puppies and mom and dad before Junior. (The implications here for cloning and all such artificial reproduction are tremendous.) And all of which abundantly proves that everything presupposes creation.

This absolute primacy of creation is further proven by the fact that if creation by God alone is obscured, or worse, falsified, that is, made to seem false by an evil ideology such as evolutionism, then not only the supernatural order of Divine Grace is polluted in its very essence, but the natural order is effectively destroyed. We see this clearly demonstrated in such abominations as the legalization of abortion, homosexuality and the alleged dissolution of the marriage bond between one man and one woman, “till death do us part”. Destroy the primacy of creation and of the order that it established, and all else falls like a house of cards. Until Catholics understand this and until a holy pope restores the primacy of creation, just as narrated in Genesis I, the present disorder will only increase with the loss of inumerable souls that could be saved by a proclamation of the truth.

This is the task of the one true church founded by Our Divine Lord and personified by His Immaculate Mother.

She alone must guard and teach the truth of all things, to counter and finally destroy the synthesis of all heresies that today is destroying civilization.

In conclusion, listen to St. Paul writing to the Colossians: ….giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light, Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in Whom we have redemption through His Blood, the remission of sins; Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature; for in Him were all things created in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones or Dominations, or Principalities or Powers: all things were created by Him and in Him. And He is before all, and by Him all things endure. And He is Head of the Body, the Church, Who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things He may hold the primacy, because in Him it hath well pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, making peace through the Blood of His cross, both as to the things that are on earth and the things that are in heaven. (Colossians, 1:12-20)

Those who think an emphasis upon creation would somehow detract from Jesus Christ, should ponder well this passage from St. Paul. And of necessity all consideration of creation must include Genesis 3:15 and Apocalypse 12:1, for the Son cannot be separated from the Mother, the woman of Genesis and the Apocalypse, in these eternal enmities.

How is it that Catholics, who for how many centuries heard at the close of every low Mass, the opening words of St. John’s gospel:  "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of man; and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it…." (John 1: 1-14)

Even more so than the atheist for whom, according to St. Paul there is no excuse (Rom. 1:20) – even more so can there be no excuse for Catholics to deny the Genesis narrative so fully explained by St. Paul and St. John in terms that approach the mystical. They absolutely proclaim the literal, historical truth and thus refute all attempts to reduce them to myth or mere allegory. The entire historical and literal veracity of Genesis I-II must be restored in continuity with the Hexaemera of the Fathers and their unanimous belief in geocentricity.

The fact is that a literal Six-Day creation week, including a geocentric cosmology today, may call forth only ridicule and even persecution. But truth is truth and every Catholic is obliged by baptismal vows to say with our Divine Lord: “For this was I born, for this I came into the world – to give testimony of the Truth” (John 18:37)

Furthermore needed, is the interior life of prayer and mortification (as taught by all the great classics of the spiritual life from the Desert Fathers and Benedictine Monasticism up to and including the great Carmelite Saints – John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila; Therese of Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity and after them – St. Francis De Sales and so on. All true spiritual life leading to mystical union with God must, of necessity, be based on the truths of both reason and faith and thus on a true theology of creation. The only alternative has already been demonstrated for us in the false mysticism of Teilhard de Chardin. His false mysticism is the source of all so-called New Age Spiritualities. The Monitum against his works issued by Pope John XXIII has not been adhered to or heeded by the rebellious spirit of Vatican II, which encouraged all heretical novelties – giving rise to the triumph of Modernism that is now destroying the Church and World.