2017 : Rorate Coeli desuper!
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
So here we are, in 2017 A.D… A great part of the Catholic world is looking forward to Our Lady’s intervention with her Divine Son this year for peace in the Church and in the world. Indeed, didn’t She say at Fatima:
I want you to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only She can help you." (13 July 1917)
“2017” rings in our ears like the angelic cry in the ears of the shepherds keeping the night watch over their flock. “Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David” (Luke 2:10-11).
It sure is night time in the Church and in the world at this moment. In fact it has never been so dark. The Church seems to be like the inanimate body of Our Lord, hanging on the cross, still united to the divinity, but without its soul.
Behold, the holy city is a wilderness:
Sion is a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation:
the house of your sanctification and your glory,
where thee our fathers praised.”
“Jerusalem is in desolation” It still is! Just two days before last Christmas, a cardinal spoke publicly of a formal rebuke to the Pope for his erroneous teaching on marriage and adultery following the Dubia he and three other cardinals sent to the Pope last September. On the doctrinal level, as we have written last month, one of the greatest heresiarch of all times, Martin Luther, is being commemorated by Churchmen. What next?
In the world, we certainly have reached an “all-time low”, definitely worse in certain aspects than in any pre-Christian times. For instance, when, tell me, did we ever see in man’s history governments funding with millions of dollars the killing of billions (in the last fifty years) of innocent babies through abortion? Or funding the horrific trade of baby body parts as it has been recently discovered? Or a society encouraging men to physically become women and vice-versa? And teaching all kinds of un-namable perversions to children in national schools?
Behold, O Lord, the affliction of thy people,
and send forth Him who is to come;
send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth,
from Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion:
that He may take away the yoke of our captivity.”
‘end forth She whose Immaculate Heart is to reign that She may take away the yoke of our captivity’!
With the prophet Daniel in the captivity of Babylon, we too can cry to the Lord:
Incline, O my God, thy ear, and hear: open thy eyes, and see our desolation, and the city upon which thy name is called: for it is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before thy face, but for the multitude of thy tender mercies” (Dan 9:18)
We too are seeing in our days “in the temple the abomination of desolation” (Dan 9:26)
We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing,
and we all do fade as a leaf:
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away;
thou hast hid thy face from us:
and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.”
2017 is certainly a year of great hope. The good Lord, with great wisdom, has allowed things to get so bad in the Church and in the world, so that, to use words of St Thomas, “the disease (that is the crisis in the world and in the Church) having gained strength; and that having recognized (our) infirmity (we) might cry out for a physician, and beseech the aid of grace" (3a, Q.1, a.5).
Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,
my salvation shall not tarry:
why wilt thou waste away in sadness?
why hath sorrow seized thee?
Fear not, for I will save thee:
for I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.”
Let us heed our blessed Lady’s maternal appeal every day this year of grace, 2017 A.D.: “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war(s), because only She can help you”.
Our Lord gave to Sister Lucy the reasons behind this all: “Because I want My whole Church to recognize that consecration (of Russia) as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that it may extend its cult later on, and put the devotion to this Immaculate Heart beside the devotion to My Sacred Heart.”
May we see her Immaculate Triumph soon!
A truly blessed New Year to all our readers, and, as we say in Quebec, “Paradise at the end of your days”!
News from the District
English speaking retreats 2017 in Saint-Césaire:
- For women: Feb. 6-11 (Fr. Couture);
Aug. 14-19 (Fr. Belisle);
Oct. 9-14 (Fr. Couture) - For men: Feb. 13-18 (Fr. Couture);
Aug. 21-26 (Fr. Belisle);
Nov. 20-25 (Fr. Couture)
Other English speaking retreats will in the West, Please consult the nearest priories.
Fatima Pilgrimage August 15-27: Fatima to Lourdes via many Spanish shrines. Contact the District house.
Fr. Daniel Couture
District Superior
