News Item: : Kyrie Eleison - Lord Save Us!
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Monday 03 April 2017 - 11:37:06

We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless You; because by Thy Holy Cross, Thou hast Redeemed the world! The Good Friday meditations in the days of Pope Benedict XVI.

The Passion of Christ in the Church

It was announced through the Italian ANSA news service on Friday that Pope Francis' Via Crucis meditations on Good Friday will have been written by Professor Anne-Marie Pelletier.

That this represents yet another distressing scandal to the Catholic faithful has been well summarised by Dr. Maike Hickson's weekend article at 1 Peter 5. From the translations and analysis provided by Dr. Hickson, it appears that Prof. Pelletier has used her academic position in the past to forge convoluted, modernistic and self-contradictory arguments to subvert the Scriptural teachings of Christ and promote the acceptance of divorce and '''re-marriage'' in the Church.

Just to give a flavour of this approach, let us mention Dr. Hickson's exposure of Prof. Pelletier's depiction of the Catholic Church's traditional teaching on the 6th Commandment - including the licentiousness of sexual intercourse outside of marriage - as being ''a rather rigid interpretation''.

Dr. Hickson also reminds her readers that Prof. Pelletier took part in the infamous ''study day'' at the Pontifical Gregorian University in May 2015, which prepared the way for the Rome Synod of 2015 with dissenting positions regarding the Church's teaching on divorce and homosexuality.

Even if Prof. Pelletier somehow manages to write a thoroughly orthodox and edifying set of Stations of the Cross meditations for Good Friday, her authorship would still represent a major source of scandal and confusion. However, it is also to be feared that her forthcoming Good Friday reflections may be used to further the dissenting agenda which is presently scourging Christ's Church.

Indeed, the distress caused by this latest example of Pope Francis promoting such a public dissenter from Catholic orthodoxy to a key role is exacerbated this time by the sensitivities which so naturally surround the Good Friday liturgy and devotions for all faithful Catholics who love Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

By way of stark contrast, this latest debacle has called to mind for me those powerful Via Crucis meditations which Pope Benedict XVI led at the Colosseum on Good Friday 2005. To be sure, they are so Christocentric that they still have much to teach us; they even stand upright as a timeless and potent rebuke to the present situation.

His following meditation and prayer for the Ninth Station, wherein he lamented the sacrilege, filth, secularism, narcissism, and twistedly faithless theories that had entered into the Church, seems particularly appropriate at this very testing time for the Catholic faithful.

Jesus Falls the Third Time

V/. Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.

R/. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

Sacred Scripture

From the Book of Lamentations 3:27-32.

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust - there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

Meditation

What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us? We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in His own Church? How often is the holy Sacrament of His Presence abused? How often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that He is there! How often is His Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where He waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in His Passion. His betrayal by His disciples, their unworthy reception of His Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer, it pierces His Heart. We can only call to Him in the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison - Lord save us (cf Matthew 8:25).

Prayer

Lord, Your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of Your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray You time and time again, after all our grand words and lofty gestures. Have mercy on Your Church; within Her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag You down to earth, Satan laughs, for he hopes You will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of Your Church, You will remain prostrate and overpowered. But You will rise again. You stood up, You arose and You can also raise us up. Save and sanctify Your Church. Save and sanctify us all.

As you will have seen, these reflections of Pope Benedict XVI have the inherent power to bring tears to the eyes and heart.

So, too, does the writing of a papally endorsed Way of the Cross by Prof. Pelletier; though, perhaps, for widely different reasons. 

Come Good Friday, and unless Prof. Pelletier is using the occasion to express her sincere repentance for her public attack on God's Law, we know which meditations we will be using; and they won't be those of Prof. Pelletier...

Given the gravity of this ongoing situation, where sacrilegious scandal is being heaped upon sacrilegious scandal, perhaps we could all pray the Stations of the Cross for the souls of Pope Francis and Prof. Pelletier. At least, that way, something Catholic might come of all of this.

Kyrie Eleison - Lord Save Us!

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