[This just came appended to a donation.  Thank you so very, very much, and remember, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered for all of my benefactors and supporters daily – no purchase necessary, batteries not included, action figures sold separately!]

Hi Ann,

Thank you for your post telling us to “go to Mass”, even if our only option is the Novus Ordo, because these Masses are valid and Jesus is really there waiting for us. Yesterday, I followed a link someone posted in the comments to a YouTube video by Michael Matt. It led to another video denouncing Vatican II. Everything was fine until the video claimed “Pope Francis” was not only not pope, but also not even a valid priest, due to the Rite of Ordination being changed. This group claims you have to formally renounce V2 and get “re-baptized” [good grief] in their schismatic sect. [I’m guessing it was the so-called “Most Holy Family ‘monastery'”?] They say all your past confessions are invalid and it is a grave sin to attend N.O. Masses. It is deceptive. [That’s one word for it…] They suck you in with a bit of truth [yep], drop a bombshell on you, and use fear to try to get you to email them [CULT!!]. Because of this I could tell they were evil. I told them Jesus would never do this to us, and that as long as He was there at Mass, I would be there. [I’ll see you there, sister!] Nevertheless, afterward I lay prostrate in tears praying to God to help me know the truth. Your blog post, I believe, was God’s answer to my prayer. He is reassuring me that yes, Novus Ordo Masses are valid and Jesus is present in the Eucharist. [Don’t forget, He is reposed in the Tabernacle too.  You can visit Him whenever a church is open – not just at Mass.] I can feel the love and charity in your words. [Second Joyful Mystery!! The Visitation – Fruit of the Mystery, Fraternal Charity.] Thank you, and God bless you!!

A

The Visitation, Mariotto Albertinelli, ARSH 1503, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Something like this happened a few weeks ago, too.  A priest sent me an email asking for a citation.  I sent it back to him immediately, and he responded that if my argument had any strength, I wouldn’t NEED any citations.

Ummmmmmmm….

At which point, I concluded the “dialogue”.

Folks, you REALLY need to take things like this into consideration.  Remember Our Lord’s words to the disciples of John the Baptist: Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen.

Observe.  Take in data.  Process that data.  Think.  Use your brain.  Draw a conclusion.

Remember, Tweets are limited to 240 CHARACTERS, including spaces.

Click on the image to go to the thread to read it in context.

St. Augustine – USELESS!

St. Thomas Aquinas – USELESS!

St. Jerome – USELESS!

(Laurence England, greatest living song parodist, please go to the nearest white courtesy telephone….)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyM8NVl4yBY

The satanic islamic political system teaches that its non-existent deity, “allah” is PURE WILL, not rational.  Not being bound in any way by rationality or logic, “allah” is free to change ad libitum, and to lie, deceive, and be the center of a constant chaos – anything goes at any time for any reason or no reason at all.  What “allah” wants, “allah” gets.

What we see here is, of course, just a way for the islamic warlord founders and the micro-oligarchy that has run the islamic political system for these past 1400 years to justify anything – absolutely ANYTHING – in the name of “allah”.  In the islamic political system, the law means whatever the strongest thug gets an imam to issue a declaration saying it means.  Being totally unconstrained by the Divine Law (the Law of Moses, in this case), or even the Natural Law, or any precedent (because “allah” as pure will can change at any time, and back again, as many times as “he” wills, remember), what results is pure, satanic chaos.  Nothing can be “known”.  There is no bedrock standard of anything, ever.  Justice, as a concept, becomes a punchline to a joke.  All that can be relied upon is the tyranny of evil, power-hungry men.

A powerful example of this was cited in my video presentation “Islamic Sexuality: A Survey of Evil”.  In May ARSH 2011, a Moroccan imam, Abd Al-Bari Al-Zamzami, a founding member of the oxymoronically named International Union of Muslim Scholars issued a fatwa explicitly permitting a husband to have sex with the corpse of his dead wife up to six hours after her death (the body still retaining warmth and some muscular pliability).

The fact that this is a capital offense against both the Mosaic Law and, obviously, the Natural Law, and that one could find other examples of imams saying exactly the opposite, namely that necrophilia is always forbidden MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE.  Since the base premise is that “allah” is pure will, devoid of rationality and can change on a dime, and there is absolutely no firm, immutable base to anything, most especially to notions of law or jurisprudence, that EVERYTHING is contingent on the whims (and oftentimes the financial and/or sexual payoff) of the local imam, the law becomes a completely meaningless joke, trotted out and given lip-service to in order to lend an air of legitimacy to the diabolically illegitimate tyrants and kleptocrats of the day.

Do you see where I might be heading with this??

The Pope is bound to Canon Law insomuch as Canon Law is derived from DIVINE AND NATURAL LAW.  All three provisions of Canon 188 are derived from Divine and/or Natural Law.

Canon 188: A resignation made out of grave fear that is inflicted unjustly or out of malice, substantial error, or simony is invalid by the law itself.

Okay, just off the top of my head here, Coercion would be against the Fifth Commandment if it involved any threats of violence of death.  It would also be against the Seventh Commandment as a form of stealing; stealing of the Office itself, and possibly stealing of a man’s right to his reputation if threats of detraction are involved (aka blackmail of the guilty).  If the coercion is in the form of blackmailing of the innocent, this would be against the Eighth Commandment because it would be bearing false witness.

Substantial Error:  Can the Pope make 2+2=5?  No.  Can the Pope make any number that is not 1 equal to 1?  Can the Pope make 2 = 1?  Of course not.  This is a clear breaking of the Natural Law, of which arithmetic and logic are subsets.

Simony: To accept a bribe or payoff in exchange for attempting to resign the Papacy would be not merely the coveting of money, but is even moreso a sin of IRRELIGION, a sin against the FIRST COMMANDMENT itself because it is the buying and selling of a spiritual thing, namely, in this case, the exercise of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction – the Papacy itself.

Now here is the $64,000 question:

Do you honestly believe that the Pope has the ability to ABROGATE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and/or THE NATURAL LAW?

If the Law is derivative of GOD HIMSELF, being perfect good, truth and justice, and Jesus Christ EXPLICITLY bound Himself to the Law when He gave Peter the Keys, saying:

And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven

Does it make any sense whatsoever that the Pope can override the very ESSENCE of God Himself, namely truth, goodness, justice and RATIONALITY? That the Pope can do that which even God Himself cannot and would not do given that God is pure goodness, truth, love and justice?

If so, then what EXACTLY is the stable base upon which EVERYTHING exists?  How can Peter be The Rock if Peter is NOT anchored to The Divine and Natural Laws, which is to say to Christ Himself?  If you take away the Earth (God Himself, the Rational Logos) what, exactly is the Rock (Peter) going to sit upon that The Church is then subsequently built upon?  If the Divine Law is mutable and overridable, and even the Natural Law can be casually tossed aside (any positive integer greater than 1 can equal 1 if it suits the Pope’s error), then how can God be rational?  Is the first verse of St. John’s Gospel, proclaimed at the conclusion of almost every Tridentine Mass, in error?  Is Christ NOT the Word, the LOGOS??

Like I said, this all sounds very, very suspiciously like the islamic political system and its irrational, pure will tyrannical satanic fake deity crap.  Red flag much??  Maybe worth a rethink?

The Pope is absolutely bound by Canon Law insomuch as a given point of Canon Law is simply a derivative recapitulation of Divine or Natural Law, which Canon 188 is in every particular.

To argue otherwise (if you can even call it that) is madness, and of the Enemy.

I hope this helps.

Love therefore is the fulfilling of the Law.

Plenitudo ergo legis est dilectio.

How incredibly, incredibly sad.  And chilling.  It is simply horrible to watch other people self-harm like this, much less the damage being done to souls, and to Our Lord and His Church, already under such unspeakable attack.  I think this DEFINITELY warrants a call to priests to offer the Holy and August Sacrifice of the Mass for Dr. Taylor Marshall.

Now I want you to just stop and think about this.  Do you HONESTLY believe that ANYONE telling you to STOP GOING TO MASS can possibly, possibly be of the Holy Ghost? Do you honestly believe that Jesus Christ actively wills you to break the THIRD COMMANDMENT?

Not that anyone is excommunicated, but purely to drive home the point of how wicked and uncharitable the Tweet of Dr. Marshall’s is, did you know that even people who have been formally excommunicated are still 100% bound by the Third Commandment to assist at Mass and fulfill their Sunday Obligation and all Holy Days of Obligation? If a formally excommunicated person does not hear Mass on Sunday, that is another mortal sin added to their tally. An excommunicated cannot receive Holy Communion, obviously, but he is still obliged, and Holy Mother Church earnestly desires that he COME TO MASS precisely because the Mass is the intersection of Heaven and Earth, with infinite quantities of grace available to every soul there present.

EVERYONE should go to Mass.  The only kind of Mass that one should absolutely not assist at is an INVALID Mass, which is actually then no Mass at all, but an aping of the Mass.  Even if a given Mass is illicit, which almost every Novus Ordo Mass is by definition, since the Novus Ordo was conceived in malice by enemies of God and His Holy Church (with parts of the Canon literally composed on the back of a napkin in a restaurant in the Trastevere district of Rome) if a Novus Ordo Mass is all that is available, one not only SHOULD assist at it, but MUST hear it to fulfill the Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation.

Why?  Why is EVERYONE bound to hear Mass, even if it is illicit, up to and including those who have been formally excommunicated?

BECAUSE THE MASS IS CALVARY.

Because the Mass, even an illicit Mass, so long as it is VALID, effects the warping of space and time itself such that the once-for-all event of Calvary, these almost 1989 years ago (+/-) is made ACTUALLY PRESENT upon the Altar right in front of you. You ARE there.

Why did Christ do this?  Because He loves you so much that He wants you there with Him as He dies in agony for your sins, because YOUR presence is a consolation to HIM, which is a truth that is so incomprehensible in its infinite goodness and purity of its gratuitous love that it should make us all melt with joy while simultaneously buckling us over in fear and humility.  Remember, Christ Jesus would go through His entire Passion and Death JUST FOR YOU AND YOU ALONE, and even more incomprehensibly, He would do it AS MANY TIMES AS YOU GO TO MASS IN YOUR LIFE.  Given this, does it sound right to you that it is in any way possible that God would ever, ever NOT want you to hear a VALID Mass?  Can any such whispers in your ear possibly have their origin from the Holy Ghost?  Of course not.  It is the objective of satan to try to convince people to not attend Mass.  Especially now.

Consider also who is also present at the Foot of the Cross at every Mass: The Blessed Virgin, and St. John, who as “The Disciple that Jesus Loved” is the proxy for YOU.  Jesus loves you infinitely.  YOU are the Disciple that He Loves.  Do you honestly believe that He would ever tell you to NOT come to the Foot of the Cross – ever?  No – only The Liar would dare suggest such a thing.  Do you honestly believe that Jesus Christ would ever actively will that you NOT stay close to His Mother, that you LEAVE HER SIDE, knowing that He specifically gave her to you as YOUR OWN MOTHER?

SuperNerd put it very beautifully in one of the Podcasts – I can’t remember which – that Jesus Christ is present at every VALID Mass, but at some Masses His Presence is more apparent to us in the remnant Church Militant as in Triumph, Enthroned as the King of All that He is.  At other Masses, Masses that are illicit for whatever reason, including Masses in which an Antipope is commemorated, His Presence is more apparent to the remnant Church Militant as in His Agony, Passion and Crucifixion.  Are we to think that we should only deign to hear Masses in which His Presence is more apparent as in Triumph, and that we should haughtily shun those Masses in which He seems to us to be shackled to the Pillar, or nailed to the Cross?  Or perhaps, when we assist at a Mass in which something illicit is done, we should comfort Our Lord, make prayers of reparation, take on penances voluntarily, and even pray for Him to give us the strength and virtue to do what He wants us to do in order to help make the illicit actions stop.  Remember, the most horrific Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ever celebrated WAS CALVARY ITSELF in ARSH 30.

The FIRST inquiry I made in June of ARSH 2016 was of a very, very solid and internationally respected priest. I asked him if it is appropriate and not hypocritical for me to receive Holy Communion at a Mass in which I knew that a man I was morally certain was an Antipope (“Francis”) was commemorated.  My question was about receiving Holy Communion – because it was a complete no-brainer that HEARING a Valid Mass could never be wrong.  He assured me instantly and with complete certainty that YES, you may receive without hypocrisy and certainly without sin in se.

In these dark days, the truly humble prayer is, “Lord Jesus, if I am wrong, correct me immediately, because all I desire is the Truth, because the Truth is You.  If I am right, confirm me, strengthen me, and suffer not my foot to be moved. (Psalm 120)  And never, ever let me be separated from You in the Holy Mass.”

Go to Mass, and never let anyone tell you that you have no place at the Foot of the Cross.  Pray. Pray the Second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary – the Visitation, whose fruit is an increase in FRATERNAL CHARITY, that is, love of neighbor.  Pray that the Truth be fully revealed, and pray especially that anyone and everyone who is being deceived be corrected, and humbly receive that correction.

Most people today, sadly, are just casually going along with the herd in terms of Antipope Bergoglio.  Others are terrified of speaking out against him and having their careers, donation revenues or worldly reputations reduced or ruined, or their order or community destroyed.  Others are too weak to engage the dataset, and prefer to live in an effeminate, blissful ignorance.  Only a relative few are actively malevolent.  Pray for priests and religious, and do whatever your state in life and your specific gifts allow to be of service to the Truth.  Go to confession.  Fast. Pray for sinners.  Pray for the excommunicates (public and latae sententiae), that they might receive graces while hearing Mass, even though they cannot/should not receive Holy Communion.

But most of all, for the literal love of God, DO NOT stop going to Mass. Do NOT stop going to the Foot of the Cross.

Oh, yes.  I saw the “Did Benedict Really Resign” piece over at LifeSite News.

First and foremost, let me add my voice to the many commenters who THANKED John-Henry Westen, The Jalsevacs, and Diane Montagna for doing and publishing the piece at all.  I doubt it would have made it beyond a pitch meeting one year ago.  But thanks to YOU GUYS for continuing to not only engage the dataset being presented here and elsewhere (I’d like to publicly recognize the NonVeniPacem blog, as well as “the Germans” for their continued work, sleuthing and translating), and despite the intense berating, gaslighting and censoring/banning that you all have put up with and persevered through from Trad, Inc. and elsewhere.  It was pointed out to me recently that what all of that name-calling, calumniating and gaslighting was, was simply a textbook application of Saul Alinsky’s Rule #13 from “Rules For Radicals”, the book that Alinsky dedicated to lucifer.  Rule #13 reads:

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Make the argument about anything except the facts.  Character assassinate the messenger(s) without mercy. Get people into a position wherein they are ashamed, embarrassed and feel they have to apologize for simply daring to point out that “the king isn’t wearing any clothes.”  That’s the Alinsky way.

Just keep a laser beam focus on the Truth, folks, and don’t worry about anything else.  Be PATIENT (the 4th Sorrowful Mystery, the Carrying of the Cross) and PERSEVERE (the 5th Sorrowful Mystery, the Crucifixion and Death of Our Lord).  Don’t throw your hands up and give up, because that’s EXACTLY what the enemy wants and is banking on.  We still have tons of ammunition (believe me) and after that should it come to it? Bayonets!

The first thing about the LifeSite piece that bears mentioning is the comment thread.  The VAST majority of comments are favorable to at least the questioning of the validity of Pope Benedict’s attempted resignation, and are not buying what the quoted prelates and academics are selling.  At all.  What this does is absolutely prove that the whole “NOBODY except a few cranks question the validity of Pope Benedict’s resignation” Trad, Inc. trope is a flat-out lie.  By now, I think a significant majority of Trad Catholic pew sitters know that “Bergoglio as Pope” and the Petrine Promise of Our Lord to Peter and his successors simply cannot be reconciled, and being told to essentially “shut up” by Ganswein and Cardinal Brandmuller, or to quit rocking the boat you’re only making things worse by Prof. de Mattei just doesn’t cut it.  Not even close.

Cardinal Burke’s words inspired the title of this post.  Folks, look at this sentence.  The last time I saw anything this heavily hedged, a feedlot full of cattle and several million bushels of corn were involved:

“I believe it would be difficult to say it’s not valid.”

Wow.  That’s a double hypothetical conditional subjunctive burger with cheese, right there, folks.  That’s not just leaving the door open, that’s propping it open with a cinder block.

+Ganswein’s snooty, dismissive, gaslighty “how dare you ask me substantive questions about my own clearly documented, lengthy public remarks” speak for themselves.  “Shut up,” the sketchy Curial climber who is playing both sides, explained….

Cardinal Brandmuller?  “Enough!” Um, no, Eminence.  Just getting warmed up, because of the Truth, there is never, ever enough.

Speaking of Cardinal Brandmuller, the letter Pope Benedict wrote cited in the post immediately below this post was, in fact, to Cardinal Brandmuller.  I have received a few emails from people who are confused about what an Apostolic Blessing is.  There is a confusion between the terms Apostolic Blessing and Pontifical Blessing.

The Apostolic Blessing or papal blessing is a blessing imparted by the Pope, either directly or by delegation through others. Bishops are empowered to grant it three times a year and any priest can do so for the dying.

The Apostolic Blessing is not to be confused with an episcopal blessing, also known as a pontifical blessing, which bishops can impart at any time by their own authority.

But really the huge giveaway and red flag is the fact that Pope Benedict in his letter to Cardinal Brandmuller says “MY Apostolic Blessing”, and then signs the letter “Benedict XVI”.  MY.  Possessive.  Yes, because Pope Benedict, as the ever-growing mountain of objective evidence points to, including his own words, did NOT intend resign the Petrine Office, but only the aspect of the Petrine Ministry “for the governance of the Church”.

“The ‘always’ is also a ‘for ever‘ – there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this. I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord. I no longer bear the power of office for the governance of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, in the enclosure of Saint Peter. Saint Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, will be a great example for me in this. He showed us the way for a life which, whether active or passive, is completely given over to the work of God.”

-Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger
27 February, ARSH 2013
Papal Audience

“My step was not one of taking flight but was precisely another way of remaining faithful to my ministry.”
Pope Benedict XVI, ARSH 2017
“Last Testament”, Peter Seewald

Finally, it bears repeating that OFFICE and MINISTRY are not synonyms.  Not even casually, and CERTAINLY not in the precise realm of Canon Law.  Consider the following:

“When Pope John Paul II was in an induced coma after being shot, did he retain the Petrine Office?”
“Yes.”
“When Pope John Paul II was in an induced coma after being shot, was he able to exercise the Petrine Ministry?”
“No, of course not.  He was in a coma.”

Therefore, how could the terms OFFICE and MINISTRY be synonymous if one answer above is “yes”, and one answer above is “no”?  What SHOULD jump out at you is the fact that the OFFICE is an ontological state – a state of BEING.  The MINISTRY is an ACTION, a DOING, an ACTUALIZATION of the power of the Office.  The action (ministry) proceeds from the being (office).  These are DIFFERENT CATEGORIES.  Therefore, the two words CANNOT be synonymous.

Next up, we will see evidence that Pope Benedict XVI not only considers himself still the Pope in his newly-created “expanded, collegial synodal” paradigm, but that he considers himself the SUPERIOR, even “Uber-Pope”.  The Germans have been busy, folks….

Blessed Emperor Charles and Zita, pray for us!
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us!
St. Vincent Ferrer, pray for us!
St. Peter, pray for us!
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. pray for us!

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!

Mary Untier of Knots, Johann Georg Schmidtner, ca. ARSH 1700, St. Peter am Perlach,
Augsburg, Germany

Readers have asked me to revisit this compelling and yet overlooked piece of evidence, which might be the single most compelling in the whole set of “visible manifestations” of Pope Benedict’s conscious retention of the Petrine Office.  Pope Benedict XVI still gives the Apostolic Blessing, and folks, he does it IN WRITING, when there is absolutely ZERO situational pressure upon him to do so.

Here is the closing of the ARSH 2017 letter from Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger to an unnamed German Cardinal that leaked last year.

“Let us pray, as you did at the end of your letter, that the Lord comes to the rescue of His Church. I bless with my apostolic blessing,

Yours,

Benedict XVI”

Folks, the Apostolic Blessing is the PAPAL BLESSING.

“I bless with my apostolic blessing.”

And then signed with his Papal name.

But I’m the crazy one, and the Barnhardt Thesis is nothing more than the uneducated rantings of a “dippy” “convert”.

Youbetcha.

Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger, whether he likes it or not, is the one and only living and reigning Pope, having invalidly attempted to “partially resign” the Papacy these six years ago.  The Papacy can not be bifurcated nor fundamentally transformed into a “collegial, synodal office” by anyone, including the Pope himself, because the Papacy was established by Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself and is thus immutable.  For a Pope to attempt such in a resignation of only the administrative/governance component of the Petrine Office, but NOT the Office in toto would render such resignation invalid per the “substantial error” clause in Canon 188, forcefully affirmed by Canon 332.2 which demands that the Roman Pontiff, if he should resign, resign the OFFICE (muneri), not merely a ministerial component or components of said Office.

I would, at this point, bless you all with my Apostolic Blessing, but I can’t, because I’M NOT THE POPE.

So, I’ll just wish you a very good evening, and assure one and all of my continued prayers.

And by “more often than not” I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

If holding the base premise that Jorge Bergoglio is now or ever has been the Pope requires you to:

-Tear down and deny the authority of the papacy… CHECK

-Deny the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church… CHECK

-Deny Papal Infallibility, that is, Vatican I, and thus believe that Christ has broken His promise, and thus deny Christ’s Divinity… CHECK

-Go against every Saint and Church Father… CHECK

-Deny visible, objective reality… CHECK

–Violate the Law of Non-contradiction… CHECK

-Play perfectly into the hands of the Freemasons, sodomites and satan himself… CHECK

Then you might consider the possibility, no matter how unthinkable and unlikely it may seem to you, that the Papacy remains intact and supernaturally protected as instituted by Christ, the Church actually is indefectible and remains so, that Vatican I was right and Papal Infallibility is real, and Christ has NOT broken, forsaken or renegged any of His promises, that the Church Fathers and Saints were NOT all mistaken, that visible, objective reality is… REAL, and that the Law of Non-contradiction has not been suspended, and thus you and your base premise are, in fact, wrong.

Just something to maybe consider.

Here is the Matthew 17:20 Initiative.  Join me.

NINTH STATION
Jesus falls for the third time

V/. Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.
R/. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

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 for ever, 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 from 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 lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on Your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag You down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that 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.

(Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum of Rome, Good Friday, March 25, ARSH 2005, 25 days before his ascendancy to the See of Peter)