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Cardinal Newman Catechist
Consultants — 4th August, 2017 — HANDOUTS n. 150
“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”
Christ Conquers Confusion & Corruption
and, with Him, WE CONQUER the Devil's malice in today's Church
& World
"We must suffer
with Christ in order that to be glorified with Him" (Romans 8:17)
Download as a  PDF
DEFEATING “DEFEATISM”
AN EARLIER Handouts n.
58, ‘Shonky’, aimed to cheer-up lay apostles who were dismayed
by the many defects in churchmen, bureaucracies and faithful, of false
doctrine and false morals, and even immorality.
However, Satan is now extending his conquests. Dismay
sinks into gloom. He tempts new victims to new sorts of sins
against Faith, Hope and Charity.
Those who live in gloom are failing to look with the eyes
of the Lord Jesus, to think what He thinks, and to do what He wills us
to do about it.
THIS Handouts is a sequel
to n. 58. We must not get embittered, nor weaken the work of Christ, by
stepping into the new snares of the Enemy — Father of
Lies and Prince of Darkness.
The sign of a “gloomer” is living in gloom, radiating
gloom and doom. They are depressed, even despairing. But a
Christian cannot be a pessimist.
The “gloomers” are forgetting:
* the triumphs of God Who does
nothing in vain;
* the glory of His creation
filling heaven and earth;
* the glory of the Incarnation of
the Son of God;
* His Public Ministry: tutoring
the apostles;
* His Passion and Death, a glory
veiled at the time;
* His triumphant Resurrection,
“they saw His glory”;
* His sending the Holy Spirit from
the Father;
* that His Holy Catholic Church is
a miracle, despite all things to the contrary in her wayward members.
Further,
in dealing with those ignorant of the problems, some are failing
to see they must be as “subtle as serpents and gentle as
doves” (Matthew 10:16).
We must make prudential judgement. We must learn the
discernment of spirits. We must not miss opportunities nor
the right way to mend the mess.
CHRIST wants, wishes, wills for us a WIN-WIN outcome,
here-and-now, and hereafter.
SATAN has a counter plan: a LOSE-LOSE-LOST strategy of
darkness, difficulties, doubt and despair.
His detailed tactics are to:-
Deceive
* by half-truths, hence half-lies;
* by prompting us to forget what
God is doing: concealment;
* by trading on those weaknesses
we should be remedying.
Demoralize
* weaken our Faith & Hope;
* destroy our inner peace;
* prompt ns to spread his
malevolence of gloom.
Immobilize
* enlisting us to spread
self-fulfilling rumours of defeat;
* by destroying apostolic action
to build Christ’s Kingdom;
* by weakening our Charity and
Contrition.
CHRIST CONQUERS!
Christ’s Gospel agenda is still the same. What is more, it
really works! He has not failed, it has not failed, nor must we. We
must live and work to carry out the plan of our Lord Jesus Christ for
us:
* Contrition
* Faith
* Hope
* Charity
The Kingdom of God is at hand:
repent and believe in the Gospel. Mark 1:15
CHRIST’S MYSTERIES BECOME OURS
1.
In meditative prayer, e.g. the Rosary.
2.
In Holy Mass, the Sacramental Sacrifice.
3.
In all the Sacraments.
4.
In a weekly cycle of Sunday plus six days
work.
5.
In the Liturgical Year, a cycle of
seasons and feasts.
6.
In daily life by an intention to live in
God’s Presence.
7.
Morning Offering: prayers, works, joys, sufferings.
8.
Almsgiving (mercy as needed), Prayer, Fasting.
INSPIRATION from coded LOGO or MOTTO
Coded Mottoes in Latin and English
UIOGD, Ut In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus:
“in order that in everything God may be glorified” 1 Peter 4:11
which St Benedict took as his motto.
AMDG, ad maiorem Dei gloriam
“To the greater glory of God”
popularly presented as,
“All My Deeds for God.”
Coded Monograms (letters all on top of each other)
ÉÇÓ = IHS. The Greek ‘H’ is our E, so
in English it is JES, short for Jesus. It’s called the Divine Monogram,
and popularized in Latin as, Iesus Hominum Salvator,
“Jesus, Saviour of men.”
É×ÈÕÓ is ‘fish’, in our letters I-Ch-Th-U-S.
This can be code for a short creed, Ieosus CHristos THeou Uios
Soter, “Jesus Christ (is) God’s Son (the) Saviour” — hence the
stylized fish on car windows.
XP are the first letters of Christ in Greek where X (chi)
is our ‘Ch’ and Greek P (rho) is our ‘R’, hence a monogram for
the Holy Name Society. [See the PDF version if the Greek
letters have not rendered correctly in your email client]
Piety in English
JMJ Jesus, Mary, Joseph
SAG St Anthony guard.
NECESSARY & SUFFICIENT...
All we have to do to please God is to practise faith, hope
and charity according to our state in life. It’s a simple recipe, hard
to do, but it works.
ENTHUSE & ENCOURAGE
* those defeated by gloom;
* and never spread gloom yourself!
* and HELP others cope with evil
in high places
* and to work out salvation in
fear & trembling:
... work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for
His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that
you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in
the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you
shine as lights in the world. Philippians 2:12-15
WHO REALLY “NEEDS TO KNOW”?
A security agency only shares knowledge on a need-to-know
basis. So —
* Be wary in sharing details of
wickedness;
* DON’T engloom others!
* especially those who just
CANNOT COPE with it, or
* WON’T BECOME MORE VIRTUOUS for knowing it.
Beware of DETRACTION. It is
a sin against Hope. DON’T reveal the faults of others without
necessity.
Beware of bad company, of listening to talk that does not
help us work for God with zeal; i.e. any talk, reading, viewing, which
tend to make us ‘give up’: “...no cowards in the Kingdom, (Apocalypse 21:8).
FRANK SHEED, great Australian
apologist
Christ in the Classroom, FJ Sheed, Sheed & Ward 1973(!)
— section IV, What the World can do to the Faith; last subheading, The
Church, pp 93-94:
THE CHURCH as we meet it can be a trial to
the Faith, especially to the faith of one not rightly or deeply
grounded in it. Ecclesiastics from highest to lowest can strike us as
arrogant, power-loving, money-loving. To take a single instance: in
place after place we see the rich sought out and honoured by the Church
authorities as never by Christ. All this is true, but to be shaken in
Faith by it means not to have understood what Christ had in mind when
He entrusted his gifts of Truth and Life to the Apostles. By that
choice of His, healing is brought to us through men who themselves need
it; we are helped in the saving of our souls by men who have no
guarantee that they will save their own; we ask absolution in
confession from men who themselves ask absolution in confession. For us
and for them, Jesus is the whole point.
To complain that ecclesiastics are defective in
intelligence or idealism is naive. It was Jesus’ decision to work upon
humanity from within it, not some special humanity made for this
purpose, but humanity as it actually is: and His working in it is as
real as the humanity in which He works. Just after the Transfiguration
and just before giving the Apostles the commission to teach all nations
till the end of tune [Editor: “He upbraided them for their unbelief.. .’’Mark 16:14], He Cried Out to a group of
them: “How long can I bear with you!” He had said that even when they
had done all that was commanded, they should still see themselves as
“unprofitable servants” (Luke 17:10). Earlier in that same chapter He
had said: “Scandals are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they
come.”
My own feeling is that students should be prepared in
school for the unattractive elements they are liable to meet in the
Church. It is for schools to decide how much should be taught and at
what age. In my own teaching of unbelievers in parks and on street
corners, I never talk about the Papacy without telling of some of our
less admirable popes. So my hearers understand why I insist that
nothing a pope could do or say would make me think of leaving the Church.
I entered it by baptism in Christ (not in the Pope), I remain in it in
order to be in Christ’s companionship (not the Pope’s), a member of His
Body (not the Pope’s). If a given pope behaved badly, I should
sympathize with Christ, whose work among men the pope’s ill-behaviour
was damaging (which is an unhappy reminder of how often our own
behaviour has dimmed the face of Christ for those who know us).
Meanwhile, whether I agree or disagree with Papal or Conciliar policy,
I know that in the Church I have the possibility of union with Christ,
and so with Father, Son and Holy Spirit and ultimately with my
fellow-men, to the very limit of my own willingness.
WHAT TO DO
* Wake up to myself! The psalmist
was inspired to say:
All in vain have I kept my heart
clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have
been stricken, and chastened every morning.
If I had said, “I will speak
thus,” I would have been untrue to the generation of Thy children.(1)
But when I thought how to
understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into
the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end.
(1) in Grail version, “betray the
faith of your people”; in Vulgate, translated, “betray the generation
of Thy sons”. Psalm 73 [72]: 13-17; see also Psalm 74 [73]: 1-12.
* Read Jesus Christ’s words: 5 chapters, John 13-17;
* Read St Peter, St Paul, St John
— and holy Job: to build up resolve and never languish
in gloom.
* Don’t feed on internet reports
inducing gloom.
* Teach Creed, Catechism, Commandments,
Prayer.
* Not even sinful churchmen can
wreck the Church..
* An intercession list
pleases God and improves ourselves.
* Lift up your hearts! Let us give
thanks...
* CHRIST IS RISEN! And He’s already sent the Holy
Spirit — but would anyone see that in me?
ROSARY
The Rosary is “Meditating on these
[Christ’s] Mysteries” in the 20 decades, usually 5 a day, in Mary’s
company, for He declared her our mother, and she lifts us up in Hope:-
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Joyful
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Luminous
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Sorrowful
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Glorious
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Annunciation
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Jordan Baptism
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Agony
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Resurrection
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Visitation
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Cana Wedding
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Scourging
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Ascension
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Birth(1)
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Kingdom/Repent
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Crown Thorns
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Descent of Spirit
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Presentation
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Transfiguration
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Carrying Cross
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Assumption
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Finding
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Holy Eucharist
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Death on Cross
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Coronation
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1: some add, “and the Epiphany”
(for the Wise Men as well as Shepherds).
Saying the Ten Hail, Mary's
for each mystery:-
1.
Minimal requirement: announce each Mystery.
2.
Say the 10 Hail, Mary's in honour of that event.
3.
See each Mystery through Mary’s eyes.
4.
Look at a picture for each (cf. stations of the cross).
5.
Have Cross & 2 Candles (or 5 lit
progressively).
6.
Make a mental picture of events within the decade.
7.
Silently recall a Bible text or just a
word for each.
8.
If others all agree, read a text aloud for each Hail,
Mary.
Soon I hope to list
200 Bible snippets, or just a key word, for nn. 7 & 8, for some
future Handouts.
Father James Tierney
© The Rev. B.J.H. Tierney. Handouts
are free and may be copied for any non-profit teaching
purpose. However, donations to defray costs are welcome and should be
made to the publisher and distributor, the Cardinal Newman Faith
Resources Inc. PO Box 359, St Marys NSW 1790; phone 02 9673 2235; fax
02 9623 3181 email <fr@eardinalnewman.com.au>
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