Throughout the centuries the Barque of Peter has served its true purpose as the Ark of Salvation sailing the dark seas of a world in sin, grievous sin. Nearly 1500 years after Christ established His Church upon the Rock of Peter, many feared the great Barque would be capsized with the broadside attack by the H.M.S. Protestant Reformation. Yet, though her sails were torn asunder, her deck lashed by lies, her hull hammered by heretics, the rudder stayed true, keeping the Ark afloat. For all of this our Lord wept bitterly in the Garden of Eden in realizing His Own Mystical Body would experience this same lamentation sparked by the revolt of Martin Luther because His Own chosen ones could not watch one hour with Him. With this landmark era of the sixteenth century, the Mystical Body of Christ was entering her own Passion when churches would be ransacked and stripped barren in iconoclastic furor, when clerics and religious would be hunted and harrassed, even persecuted for standing with Christ, praying with and to Him in one of holy Mother Church's darkest hours.

We are revising a series first presented years ago on the Sorrowful Mysteries and how the Passion of Christ relates to the Passion of the Mystical Body of Christ today by bringing it up to date to reflect on these times in 2010. On Ash Wednesday, as members of the Church Militant, we willingly surrendered all to Jesus Christ as His Heavenly Mother directs us to, the day we willingly place ourselves with Him in the Garden of Olives. Like the Apostles, our fallen human nature nags at us to rest, to take it easy. What's the rush? We are so confident our Lord will come to the rescue that we take Him for granted. That's what His chosen disciples did and that's exactly what everyone of us are doing today: taking God for granted.

    The best way to avoid this lethargy is to ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede and provide the perseverance to make this the best Lent yet. We begin with the Agony in the Garden for Christ as the God-man saw for all time the trials, tribulations and triumphs of those whom He gave His life for that they may have life and have it more abundantly. Mary knows her divine Son' suffering, her heart was pierced by the sword of sorrows. She also knows our suffering and is always there to comfort us. In her motherly way she encourages us ceaselessly to submit ourselves body and soul to God's Holy Will. For anyone doubting that or that we have no worries that God will bail us out in the end, all we need do is be reminded of the haunting words recited in the 'Prayer of the ashes' in which the priest says: "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris" - "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return."

    Yet Mardi Gras continues with laughing and partying and drunken orgies, even well into Lent and beyond. It's the pattern of rationalization that we can eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die. Yes, they may and if they do not heed Christ's words and are not in the state of Sanctifying Grace, well that death will be very, very final and there is no partying in hell. No wonder our Lady weeps so as she did at La Salette, just as her divine Son did in the Garden of Olives.

   And why did He weep so? For His sheep, His lambs. Lent is a time for His lambs to give back to Him. The forty days of Lent also assimilate with our Lord's 40 days and nights in the desert before satan sought to trip up His humanity as we saw in Sunday's Gospel that preceded His public ministry. Forty could also be equated with the 40-plus years the lambs have wondered and wandered in the desert of confusion fostered by Vatican II which has foresaken the constituted evangelic traditions by pandering and conceding to the charlatans of the world, the flesh and the devil. They can't be politically incorrect now, you see. Apostasy has a new address: Vatican City.

    How and why did we ever abandon the richness and religious resonance of Latin? Why is this brilliant tongue so sadly lacking in the mindset of the modernists liturgists? Lawyers, Doctors, Scientists, English scholars, and even Super Bowls utilize Latin, but not the Novus Ordo - the very "abomination of desolation" which Christ identified in St. Matthew 16: 15! Despite the supposed return to Latin with the "Motu Mess" they're making it up as they go along including altering, no let's call it raping, the Good Friday Solemn Prayers to please man, definitely not God. And to cover their tracks they think they can compose new Latin? It is not the ecclesiastical language of the saints and, other than Ratzinger/Benedict's overture posturing at returning to tradition, there'll be none of that while he continues his visits to synagogues, mosques and covers up for his masonic potentates. It is as if Latin is a dirty word! And yet, well over half of our English language get their derivatives from the Latin tongue, which is the root of the Romance languages for Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. Keep in mind the Gauls did not speak French, but were greatly influenced by the Romans. The richness of Latin comes from the Greek, two languages Saint Jerome knew so well. Any scholar who seeks to thoroughly master English needs Latin to better understand the native tongue; something few novus ordo presbyters do today, even those who are cramming over Motu 101 so they can say a hybrid Mess that still isn't valid if the words of Consecration are not exact and especially if they were ordained after 1968. Is there anything these conciliarists ever get right? Doubtful and sorrowful, to say the least.

    These are indeed sorrowful times. In fact, we are in those times when we should be standing with Christ at every step of the way toward Calvary. We cannot be influenced, must not be by those who mock and spit upon Him today by those who just a few days before hailed Him so triumphantly, who in their ordinations before 1965 swore before God with the Oath Against Modernism. Now they have turned. Oh, how they have turned. It's part and parcel of the fickleness and weakness of man that has continued from 33 A.D. to the present. But Traditional Catholics should be full of joy in their fasting and penance, mortifications and almsgiving for they have the present of the True Presence. Think about that. He is not present in the novus ordo lodges where the vast majority have been deceived to believe He's there, but who cannot find Him in the novus ordo cookie and the evidence is in the lack of fruits just as our Lord affirms in St. Matthew 7: 7-15.

    One of the blessings of this apostolate is connecting with old friends. I first penned these words eight years ago after Dave Fritz, a very loyal Catholic from my childhood days before Vatican II, sent me an analogy to the Sorrowful Mysteries and I wanted to share it with our readers. He pointed out that in the Passion of Our Lord, Peter denied our Lord three times before the Crucifixion. The comparisons have been made by others that those three 'Peters' who have denied Christ were anti-popes Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII), Giovanni Montini (Paul VI), then Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II). Sounds harsh, but the facts speak for themselves. The question is, where does Ratzinger fit in? Perhaps the analogy to Judas wasn't so harsh after all considering his most recent anathemas added to those so blatant before he changed hats.

    But back to the Sorrowful Mysteries which Ratzinger as a peritus at the council, made even more sorrowful through his Hegelian, Modernist innovations and time bombs in Lumen Gentium among other pastoral documents that the counterfeit church of conciliarism treat as dogmatic doctrine, eschewing the true teaching that preceded that God-forsaken council. Since true holy Mother Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, it must imitate our Lord's life, and has been doing so, now mirroring His Passion. Consider if you will the Sorrowful Mysteries and the historic course the Church has been on and how it has narrowed so in the last half of the second millennium while so many others scatter toward the wide paths strewn with roses that lead so deceptively toward the eternal abyss. Below I list the chronology and analogy that will be covered throughout this Lent, incorporating the past 500 years.

• The Agony in the Garden: The Protestant Reformation to Vatican II.
• The Scourging at the Pillar: The Second Vatican Council.
• The Crowning of Thorns: The New Mess of Paul VI.
• The Carrying of the Cross: The modernists' reforms since Vatican II
• The Crucifixion: The apostasy and schism of Rome, and the equation of the LaSalette and Fatima prophecies.

The Agony in the Garden: The Protestant Reformation to Vatican II

    Just as Christ, while kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane and weeping tears of blood, saw for all time every person who would betray Him, how much more the sadness in seeing those who vowed to uphold His teachings turn their backs on His holy Will? He saw the laxity and immorality of several of His Own Vicars, most notably that sensuous rascal Pope Alexander VI and other pontiffs and prelates of that era that let down the lambs, thus paving the way for all-out revolution by Martin Luther et al.

    Consider if you will those Christians during that time - from the lowliest of peasants to Saint Thomas More who had to have the very foundations of their Faith shaken with the exodus of so many of their neighbors. Think about it. Most of them were not learned in the Faith to the degree Catholics should be today. Monks were the major means of imparting the Truths and Traditions to the masses and in their monasteries were kept the written revelations and traditions. The spoken word was the major vehicle for evangelization. Books were not available, save for a few bibles from the Gutenberg press. While many are under the assumption that there were bibles everywhere with the invention of the printing press, keep in mind that those primitive presses were very limited in production. Yes, more had access, but not as many as we might be led to believe, for also keep in mind that the vast majority could not read. Only the aristocrats had the opportunities to drink in the classics.

    We might add that many bishops also had that opportunity, but even though knowing their Faith, they still abandoned the One True Church. That included the vast majority of prelates in England who placed man above God, choosing an earthly king King Henry VIII over the august office that represented the heavenly King in Pope Clement VII. Only the uncompromising holy bishop St. John Fisher remained loyal to the Mystical Bride of Christ. Despite Clement's weaknesses, his shortcomings, he had not apostasized for he did not and could not preach error for he was truly the Sovereign Pontiff, and the faithful could not disavow him in favor of an earthly king or rabble-rousing minister if he were truly still a Catholic Pope. The same cannot be said today for one look at His Holiness Pope Paul IV's dogmatic Papal Bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio will verify crystal clearly that the conciliar "popes" long ago apostasied from the True Faith, preaching error which no true Pope can do for a true Sovereign Pontiff is protected by the Holy Ghost from promulgating untruth. Christ promised this. So was Christ deceiving us or are the vast majority being deceived over the past 40-plus years by those false shepherd robber barons posing as popes? Do you really have to think about that question?

    While Jesus saw all the sins of mankind during His time at Olivet, He also saw as only the Divine can, all the good man does and will do - every one of us. No secrets can be kept from God. Many theologians believe that the only thing that sustained His humanity in the Garden was the buoyancy of seeing the good works, the warm hearts of His faithful among the flocks. Otherwise, the depression of the evil would have overwhelmed His human nature, just as it does us in our total humanity if we do not have hope, encouragement and goodness in our hearts. Jesus could see those faithful lambs - many going on faith alone - who fought with every last ounce of their breath to preserve the True Faith in the face of physical persecution, ridicule, confrontation, confusion. Thanks to the "Counter-Reform" begun by Pope Paul III the outstanding, infallible Council of Trent opened vistas that would usher in an era of faithfulness, producing abundant fruits for centuries. You see, there is reward in suffering.

    And, oh how Christ suffered. No one can imagine the physical and psychological pain He endured. And why? For us? "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (St. John 15: 13). He loved us so much that through Him, and Him alone, merited for us eternal life and told all why in St. John 10: 10, "I come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly." Yet how did so many respond? Jesus saw and wept at the prideful pomposity of men like Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Joseph Zwingli and the rest who roiled and rumbled during those turbulent times from the early to mid part of the sixteenth century. Christ wept bitterly at the rejection of the Faith He established by those operatives of the French Revolution. He saw the agenda of humanism in the emotional, Masonic cry of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" which He knew would only lead to "Turmoil" for His precious sheep. It formed an acronym - L.E.F.T. that would be the downfall of so many who, enlightened by human reason, thought they had a better idea. Much in the same manner the first rebel lucifer resisted with "non serviam", these misguided souls left Christ and His Holy Church. He could see how through erosion and infiltration they would invade His One True Church, like termites eating away at the foundation until the cornerstone itself was reached.

    Because of Our Lord's promise in St. Matthew 16: 18 that "the gates of hell will not prevail against it", the cornerstone still stands strong, passed down through divine Revelation and the uninterrupted traditions of holy Mother Church, but the ceilings are giving way, the support beams crumbling, the stones that protected the walls of Christ's Church are disintegrating. Christ saw all this during that hour among the olive trees after the Last Supper. He also saw how the protective measures His Vicars like Pope Saint Pius V ( De Defectibus and Quo Primum), Pope Pius IX (Syllabus of Errors), Pope Leo XIII (Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel and Humanus Genus), Pope Saint Pius X (Oath Against Modernism, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, and Lamentabili Sane), Pope Pius XI (Mortalium Animos), and Pope Pius XII (Mediator Dei) which they all established to protect the Sacred Deposit of Faith, would be swept away by the 'aggiorimento' of John XXIII that would usher in the second of the sorrowful mysteries.

    He wept copious bloody tears at the deception that would shroud man's heart and mind, let alone his soul over the centuries, by keeping the facade of the name and practice of "Christianity" by those who had left the Ark of Salvation to forge their own man-made cults with temporal purposes that presumed their salvation was assured; an impossible goal unachievable by cutting themselves off from the Barque of Peter, the true Tree of the Root of Jesse.

    Holy Mother Church had survived the early persecutions of the pagan Roman Empire, emerged stronger after the devastating Arian Heresy that lasted two centuries, weathered the Islam insurrection and the Crusades, stayed afloat when East split from West, and grew stronger in the faith as the centuries lengthened. But just as the Jews waivered and wandered, so did the hierarchy to the wiles of the world and the power of the Medici and Borgia clans in the second part of the fifteenth century. It called down God's wrath through His permitting will with the rebellion of pride against pride as the sixteenth century dawned. Those once so faithful departed the Ark, casting their oars in a different direction. They set out into the deep and the darkness of the depths.

    A new 'Dark Age' had cast its unshakable shadow amidst an otherwise unnoticed world. Few could perceive the source of this phantom in the darkness that enveloped Europe and beyond. They could not wipe the scales of conformity from their eyes. In their ineptitude and familiar zone they had few defenses for the monsters in their midst. To millions upon millions, the beacon of hope had long stood above the swirling sewer of the synthesis of all heresies, extending her beam universally, offering refuge to the wanderer, to the lost. The Lighthouse Keeper, vigilant through the centuries, had lost focus. The rays had become dimmer as the storm had grown stronger. Maintenance of the Lighthouse had been neglected. Cracks had gradually appeared in the walls. The once impenetrable Fortress on the Rock began showing stress signs. The stable Gate buckled, the seams became a sieve. The structure was wavering as apostate waves lashed against her foundation. Countless abandoned souls abandoned the Rock.

    Though crippled and caring, proud and poor, indigenous and infinite, She would not - could not - fall. Leaning perilously to port, she wavered on the edge of the precipice. What would it take to topple her? In next week's commentary we shall treat the second Sorrowful Mystery, the Scourging at the Pillar which will outline the cataclysmic event that, so insidiously and surreptiously, has sent shock waves of terror through the foundations of faith.

    At the time the Mystical Body of Christ was strapped to the pillar most had grown so complacent in the post-Leo XIII and St. Pius X vigilance, that they had totally let down their guard. Only a handful of those who truly knew the Faith, knew what was happening reacted to the apostasy about to shroud the Church. As we see now in retrospect, this tiny traditional minority was powerless against the intimidation of those determined to fashion a church of their own making. The former were unable to stem the tidal wave crashing down on an unsuspecting world, so engulfed by the forces of darkness.

    As we can now see in hindsight, the pillar of the Holy See was the focal point for the Mystical Body of Christ to be scourged beyond recognition. This was accomplished because so many of the faithful - clergy and lay - let down their guard; so many refused to speak out, not realizing that all that had erupted was a result of the very agenda launched by Luther over 400 years earlier. The ill causes and effects of Vatican II have been heard echoing in the halls of Heaven and allowed to continue, not by God's ordaining Will, but through His permitting Will. No wonder He wept so bitterly in the Garden for He saw this day - the result of not only the timidity - as well as the temerity - of the shepherds, but the Son of God also wept and continues to weep in knowing that, above and below the surface, the deafening silence of the lambs continues.