{"id":2116,"date":"2017-05-24T10:04:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T14:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=2116"},"modified":"2017-05-24T10:04:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T14:04:00","slug":"help-of-christians-china-and-trudeaus-communion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=2116","title":{"rendered":"Help of Christians, China and Trudeau’s Communion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"help<\/a>Today is the memorial of Our Lady Help of Christians<\/strong>, a title first used by Saint John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople, in 345, and invoked ever since.\u00a0 Pope Saint Pius V urged Catholics to plead for her intercession in the war against the onslaught of the Islamic Ottoman Turks in the latter half of the 16th century, which was, fortunately for the future of Europe, successful. The Pope had the title inserted into the Litany of Loreto, in thanksgiving for the victory in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 against overwhelming odds (although see my piece yesterday for today’s Islamic threat).\u00a0 Pope Pius VII instituted the official feast day in the midst of his struggle against Napoleon Bonaparte at the dawn of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century.\u00a0 More recently, during his own pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI has asked Catholics to intercede for the Church in China, still mired in many of the evils of Communism, one of which is to set up a State-controlled \u2018patriotic Church\u2019, that Catholics in the country remain faithful to the Holy Father in the midst of all the persecution and confusion this causes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our Lady Help of Christians is a title under which Mary, the Mother of God, may offer aid to any one of her children in need of assistance, which includes all of us, at some times more than others. We may pray today the prayer written to her by one of those devoted sons, Saint John Bosco:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most Holy Virgin Mary, Help of Christian,<\/em>
\nhow sweet it is to come to your feet<\/em>
\nimploring your perpetual help.<\/em>
\nIf earthly mothers cease not to remember their children,<\/em>
\nhow can you, the most loving of all mothers forget me?<\/em>
\nGrant then to me, I implore you,<\/em>
\nyour perpetual help in all my necessities,<\/em>
\nin every sorrow, and especially in all my temptations.<\/em>
\nI ask for your unceasing help for all who are now suffering.<\/em>
\nHelp the weak, cure the sick, convert sinners.<\/em>
\nGrant through your intercessions many vocations to the religious life.<\/em>
\nObtain for us, O Mary, Help of Christians,<\/em>
\nthat having invoked you on earth we may love and eternally thank you in heaven.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Speaking of needing help<\/strong>, a comment on Justin Trudeau\u2019s reception of Holy Communion by the hand of none other than the Archbishop of Montreal: LifeSite news has a write-up about this, to which I will not add much, except to say that the notion of denying Communion to an individual, even such canonical penalties as excommunication and interdict (so rarely used nowadays) are not retributive punishment, a \u2018getting back\u2019 at someone, nor are they primarily a judgement on the state of someone\u2019s soul.\u00a0 Rather, they are\u00a0medicinal<\/em>, an act of mercy, a means of leading someone in a state of \u2018public, manifest grave sin\u2019 to reflect upon their actions, and mend their ways.\u00a0 I wrote of this concerning some of the (mis)-applications of\u00a0Amoris Laetitia<\/em>, and giving Communion to those living in adultery or cohabiting without matrimony:\u00a0 The danger here of not correcting them, even supporting their actions, are the sins of\u00a0scandal<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0complaisance<\/em>, wherein, to keep the peace and please the person, we allow them to continue to live in such a way that poses a grave danger to their souls and the souls of others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Pope John Paul II declared in 1981 in\u00a0Familiaris Consortio<\/em>\u00a0concerning denying such individuals Communion, in a statement that applies analogously to Justin Trudeau\u2019s own situation:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.<\/em>\u00a0(par. 84)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Any \u2018condition of life\u2019 that \u2018objectively contradicts\u2019 the \u2018union of love between Christ and the Church\u2019 is a scandal, that is, an occasion of grave sin to the person who commits the act, and to those who witness, and especially participate in, the act.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Justin Trudeau makes no qualms about his public, manifest and unmitigated support for abortion right up until birth which, to avoid euphemism, means the wholesale murder of the unborn, paid for by the State.\u00a0 Now, he and his government are also directly responsible for the legalization of physician-assisted murder and suicide. \u00a0And this says nothing about his public, manifest support for homosexual \u2018marriage\u2019, transgenderism, radical feminism, drug use, and on it goes.\u00a0 To witness him receiving Communion in a public Liturgy signifies that he is in \u2018communion\u2019 with the Church, and all that the Church stands for, which he most manifestly and publicly is not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is not to \u2018judge\u2019 the state of his soul, whether he is in mortal sin or not, something only God and, to some extent Mr. Trudeau himself, knows.\u00a0 It\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0to asses the objective state of his actions, which put his soul and the souls of many others in grave spiritual danger, and must be remedied, rectified and repented.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of course, such resistance to the culture of death requires courage, for there will be backlash, ridicule, even persecution, but it has been so since the time of the Apostles themselves, as we currently read in the Liturgy in the Book of Acts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Christ predicted to His own disciples, and to all of us, such is the price we must pray for standing in the truth, and with the Truth Himself.\u00a0 For it is through only\u00a0through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0(Acts 14:22)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Domina nostra,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Auxilium Christianorum,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>ora pro nobis!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is the memorial of Our Lady Help of Christians, a title first used by Saint John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople, in 345, and invoked ever since.\u00a0 Pope Saint Pius V urged Catholics to plead for her intercession in the war against the onslaught of the Islamic Ottoman Turks in the latter half of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2118,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116\/revisions\/2118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}