Mary: Mother of the Church -- Come Holy Spirit, Renew the Face of the Earth

Originally posted May 21, 2018
by David Pence

Mary is the new Eve. Her willingness to be the handmaid of the Lord reversed the sin of Eve who sought to "be like God." Satan has always resented the beauty of Mary. He can't get over that the mighty Lucifer (the light bearer, Phosphorous in Greek) must bow to a human queen. Pope Francis has designated the day after Pentecost to remind us that the Body of Christ was first revealed in Mary. Today we celebrate Mary, Mother of the Church. The Church is Marian before she was Apostolic. The masculine apostolic Church cannot be understood apart from Mary, Mother of the Church. Her authority abided in her presence as a living memory of her Son. Remembering Him, witnessing the truth of his Incarnation, she nurtured and showed Mercy. Mary, Mother of the Church, Model of the Church, pray for us.

Here is a reflection on the devotion of Pope Paul VI and Pope Francis to Mary as Mater Ecclesia.   A sermon on Mary, Motherhood and Creation  by Rev. Peter Stravinskas. The Humility of Mary, the Mother of God. by Jonathan Coe.

All of these reflections show why the Pope has given this Marian mark to the day after Pentecost (Whit Monday). Our Lady as the physical perfection of femininity is the model for every soul and for the Living Church! What mighty things the Lord can accomplish in our personal and ecclesial lives if we let ourselves be a sailboat driven by the Holy Spirit instead of a motorboat driven by our own will.

                                   

       

PENTECOST: The Spirit fills the Apostles who draw the Jews into the Church who draws humanity into the Trinity.

[first published June 8, 2014]

"The Church which, already conceived, came forth from the side of the second Adam in His sleep on the Cross, first showed herself before the eyes of men on the great day of Pentecost."      (Pope Leo XIII, 1897)

                           

David Pence writes:

St. Augustine said the coming of the Holy Spirit – exactly ten days after the 40 days of Christ’s risen presence – signifies that the Spirit fulfills the Law (Ten Commandments) in Christ. The obligatory presence of adult males in Jerusalem for the Jewish Pentecost crowded the city square with men speaking the different languages of the nations, but sharing the unified liturgical memory of Israel.

"For as of old on the fiftieth day after the sacrifice of the lamb, the Law was given to the Hebrew people on Mount Sinai – so after the sacrifice in which the True Lamb of God was slain on the fiftieth day after his resurrection, the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and those who believed." [from a 5th-century sermon of Leo the Great]
                               

The Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Church, the Giver of Life, and the great binder of communions. He animates matter with life, draws the living to the Church, and indelibly configures the baptized to the Body of Christ. He was a co-conspirator with Christ throughout his life on earth, as they plotted to confound Satan in the desert and build the Kingdom of God on earth. The presence of the Spirit was activated on Pentecost, as it is sacramentally for us in Confirmation. That distinct Catholic sacrament of initiation “confirms in the Spirit” the soul of the Christian to the physical liturgical presence of the Bishop as the local head of the Apostolic Church. Like baptism, confirmation orders the soul with a permanent seal of character in ecclesial communion with Christ. After confirmation there is no such thing as a vocation to the single life. Baptism in one sense, and confirmation in a deeper way, calls each of us out of the single life into a new communal identity as a practicing Catholic.

In the days before Pentecost, the Twelve had been corporately restored by the election of Matthias (the opening chapter of the Book of Acts.) On Pentecost the Spirit filled the apostles, and their shouts of praise were heard in the tongues of many nations (second chapter of Acts.) An early bishop, when questioned why he couldn't talk so foreigners could understand, replied that by baptizing men of  many nations and languages, it is the Church now through her converts who speaks in tongues understood by all the nations.

It was Peter – surrounded by his apostolic brethren constituting the restored twelve tribes of Israel – who formally addressed the “Men of Judea” gathered in their holy city. He announced that the Messiah promised to them as Jews had come to deliver them from their enemies, but had been killed by those He came to save. He offered them repentance and incorporation in the new Kingdom under Christ the Lord. The universality of the Church’s Kingdom message to the nations, the fact that the Messiah was not another human prophet but the God of nature become man, and the mystery that God is One in Three Persons: these three truths became the reflections of Pentecost Sunday sermons down through the ages. Like all of us, the 3,000 baptized Jews of that day did not fully appreciate the extent of the miraculous events that engulfed them. The developing realization that this coming of the Spirit was the action of a distinct Person of a triune God gave a name and special time for reflection to the octave Sunday of Pentecost: Trinity Sunday.

May 30 MEMORIAL DAY: Masculine Publics and Family Weekends

[first published May 30, 2014]


by Dr. David Pence



May 30th was a day once designated to honor the war dead of the nation. It was an interruption of our normal routines – to remember in a public religious way on a specific date the fact that both our commercial productivity during the week and our familial enjoyment and church worship on the weekend were purchased by the blood of our soldiers. It was not a day dedicated to those who died in natural disasters or nursing home accidents. It was not a familial day to grieve our particular relatives.

It was a day with a specific purpose – for a nation to reflect on the blood sacrifice that forged our communal identity and insured our liberty. This time of spiritual reflection was meant to be an interruption of the daily rhythm of our lives, just as the life cycles of young men were interrupted by their sacrificial response to the unplanned threats against our country through the ages.
                                   

This is the nature of civic liturgy. Like religious acts recalling heroic sacrifice, this communal act of remembrance is meant to be formative. The public assembly bestows public gratitude and honor to encourage the living to emulate the dead. The specific deaths we remember on this day were overwhelmingly young and male. The willingness of these young men to participate in the warrior bond of civic protection was not incidental to their maleness. The American socialization strategy since our first colonial militias has been to identify masculine maturation with a willingness to bear arms for the local, state, or national group and risk death in the performance of that duty. This pattern of gender-bound duty is as ancient as circumcision and as current as male-only draft registration.

On this day we impress on young males the deadly seriousness of that honor code. The Taps we hear this day resonate with the heartfelt brotherhood known in sports teams, Boy Scouts, work crews, and local police and fire departments across our land. Patriotism is a kind of masculine ecology: a shared love of men for the habitat that feeds and shelters us. That homeland is sacralized in the burial ceremonies of those fallen in her defense. The patriot, the fatherland, a brotherhood from sea to shining sea, the sons of liberty, the band of brothers—all of these expressions evoke the inter-generational masculine fraternity of duty that forms the sacred sinews of every nation from ancient Israel to Singapore to America. Submerging the masculine public military character of this day into extended family weekends diminishes our understanding of the national brotherhood of duty which safeguards our nation. Losing a vigorous public sense of masculine protective duty has imperiled our cities, feminized our campuses, filled our prisons, and demoralized our public life in work and politics.

This denigration of the "male bond" has rippling consequences, for the male military bond is meant to serve higher bonds than itself. The sacral bonds of marriage and religious worship both depend on the protective military ethos we remember on Memorial Day. The flattening pacifism of our churches and the shrinking de-gendered selfishness of our families are eating away at the masculine character, which protects them both. This spreading defect in public masculine character robs our adolescents looking for boundaries, and our elderly and widows looking for protection. Sexual confusion among adults allows the predators a hundred unprotected alleyways, city streets, suburban strip malls and apartment buildings to ply the sex trade. In a certain way, all our children become orphans and all our women widows, without the comforting tranquility of masculine agreement.

Let us allow our family and work schedules to be interrupted. Let us once again remember May 30, Memorial Day. Let us salute that half-mast flag, and remember the duties and protective sex roles that have bound us since the beginning.

UPDATE: Here is a moving tribute to our fallen soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen.  May they all rest in peace.

In 2009 Dr. Pence gave this Memorial Day speech.

2017 Secretary of Defense Mattis at Arlington-a warrior's testament.

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: SATURDAY, MAY 23

by A. Joseph Lynch

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

"HE'S A GOOD LIAR": Church Militant has uncovered more homosexual predation and cover-ups in the SSPX. This time their reporting goes all the way up to Bishop Fellay, the former superior general of the SSPX.

MISSISSIPPI BURNING: A Mississippi church fighting against state's coronavirus restrictions was burned down on Wednesday. The burning is being investigated as arson after a sign was left that read: "I Bet you stay home now you hypokrits."

TRUMP - OPEN CHURCHES: President Trump has now declared churches essential and threatened to override governors who continue to keep them closed. Many Catholic churches plan to defy the Democrat governor and begin reopening. They should now have some help from President Trump should issues arise.

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA

VOTER FRAUD: As the nation prepares for elections, lawmakers must balance voter safety and voting integrity. It now appears that there might have been voting irregularities in Nevada's recent vote-by-mail. Meanwhile a former elections judge admitted to stuffing ballot boxes in south Philadelphia.

BURR-FEINSTEIN INVESTIGATION: Senators Burr (D) and Feinstein (D) are coming under FBI scrutiny for possible insider trading. Both sold off stocks after coronavirus briefings. Insider trading, cronyism, and careerism are aspects of a swamp filled with creatures of both political parties.

RED WAVE? Republicans are sweeping national, state, and local special elections. Last week Republican House candidates won in Wisconsin by 14 points and California by 12 points. The shocking California win is the first flipped House seat by the GOP since 1998. In swing state Pennsylvania, the GOP was three-for-three in special elections for the state House. In Virginia, the GOP flipped two key city councils. More from Dr. Steve Turley. Another election observer has said that if these elections signal a national trend, then states like Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia, and Biden's home state of Delaware, would tilt Trump in November.

PROMOTING UNEMPLOYMENT: Fears among some members of the GOP were seemingly prescient as many Americans can make more money (via the CARES Act) being laid off than by going to work. A Phoenix restaurant, for example, has over thirty job openings yet are receiving few applications despite a 20% unemployment rate. Helping individual Americans by killing off the nation's small businesses is no help in the long run. The Democrats who want to keep the $600 weekly unemployment bonus going through 2021 will only incentivize higher unemployment while killing off what is left of small businesses. Thankfully Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, says that workers who refuse to return will not qualify for unemployment.

INFECTING NURSING HOMES: Governor Cuomo of New York chose Mother's Day (May 10) to reverse the head-scratching decision to send over 4,300 recovering coronavirus patients to nursing homes during the height of the pandemic. It appears that 5,800 New York nursing home residents died after Cuomo put the state's most vulnerable population at risk.

III. THE NATIONS

COVER UP THE COVER UP: Last year we informed our readers of whistleblower, Ian Henderson, who led an international team of investigators from the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to investigate a chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria. In his report, which was left out of the official report and later leaked, Henderson said that there is “higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft”. In other words, Assad was innocent. In January Henderson testified before the UN that no government-led chemical weapons strike took place. Leadership at the OPCW has since tried to discredit Henderson, but documents reveal Henderson's background and leadership role within the Syria ground investigation.

AL QAEDA IN FLORIDA: Last December a Saudi national was responsible for the killing of American soldiers in Pensacola. Saudi Arabia is the home of Wahhabism, the radical wing of Islam that is responsible for nearly every act of Islamic terrorism - including 9/11. We were not surprised to learn this week that the terrorist had been in communication with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was led by bin Laden, another Saudi. If America wants to protect its soldiers and citizens, it would do well by reassessing its relationship with Saudi Arabia, the home of Wahhabi ideology and its financier abroad. 

MACRON LOSES MAJORITY: As President Macron's approval rating slips to 43%, the French continue to sour on his presidency. Defectors have now cost his party their majority in the French parliament and protests are increasing. The French supreme court is also rebuking Macron, calling for an end to the lock down on French churches.

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

PP GETS PPP: Planned Parenthood affiliates received $80 million from the Paycheck Protection Program. Not only is this against the president's wishes to see the nation's leading abortion provider receive federal money, but the national organization is clearly not included within the protections intended for small businesses. While the government is seeking the return of the money, twent-seven senators have asked AG Barr to investigate.

UN GOES SOUTHERN: It comes as no surprise that the UN is embracing gender neutral, politically correct terms. American's in the Deep South, however, might be happy to hear that the UN has called for using "ya'll" instead of "ladies and gentlemen". Who knew Southern shorthand salutations would be internationally seen as more genteel than the time immemorial ladies and gentlemen.

ROE V. PRO-LIFERS: According to a new documentary, Norma McCorvey - the eponymous "Roe" of Roe v. Wade - seemingly renounced her 1995 pro-life conversion shortly before her death in 2017. While this news would not surprise AoA, we invite readers to see Lifesite News' reporting on the scandal.  

ASCENSION THURSDAY: Thus began “his participation, in his humanity, in God's power and authority.” The Restoration of Patriarchy

[first published on May 29, 2014]

"Yea, angels tremble when they see 

how changed is our humanity; 

that flesh hath purged what flesh had stained, 

and God, the flesh of God, hath reigned."

                                 

Doc Pence writes on this feast of the Ascension:


An old nun reflecting on the Ascension said it had always been her least favorite mystery of the rosary. "We wait two thousand years for the Messiah.  He comes. He is killed, but he conquers death and rises victorious from the dead. He is back for just forty days and then He’s gone again—and we call that a joyful mystery?"

But it really is such a glorious feast. We should stop the work week and devote this 40th day after Easter to contemplate this very good news. For Christ finally brings Adam where he was meant to be – in communion with the Father through the Son. "The nature of our Humanity in Christ was raised above all the Hosts of heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father," said Leo the Great (d. 461). Christ the alpha male who configures humanity into a single organism shows humans our heavenly place in the divine Plan. We will be the Body of Christ at the right hand of the Father.  

The netherworld of Death has been lit up. The Prince of this world witnessed the greatest prison-break in history, as the King returned and claimed as his own not only Abraham and Moses but Adam and Eve -- the Chosen People and the human race. Christ took back the nether-world -- all that space and time where man enters the land of the dead is now a place not to be imprisoned by the Devil but to encounter the risen Christ. 

One kind of earthly absence allows His Sacramental Presence everywhere else. One Divine Person goes behind a cloud and the host, while the Person of the Spirit becomes more prominent.

There has been a righting of the spiritual universe with the Son entering the Divine Sanctuary providing a Way for humanity's theosis.  The Beloved Son has obeyed.  Humanity has been returned to the Father. Filial Piety has restored us to the Patriarchy. Christ now is returned to the right hand of the Father with these new "creature persons" allowed to participate in their Divine Communion. This restoration of the Beloved Son to the Father after His great battle creates a huge magnetic field penetrating the biosphere where men are meant to form ourselves into the patriarchal fraternity of the apostolic church. This will create a central protected space for the Marian Church where virgin mothers receive the Holy Spirit and live the works of mercy.

Christians need to keep acting even as we exalt in our new elevated status as sanctified humanity.  St. Augustine in his Ascension Day sermon reminded us: "Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but He still suffers all the pain that we the members of His body have to bear. He showed this when He cried out from above,  'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' and when He said, 'I was hungry and you gave me food'."

The angels (who seem to appear whenever a ladder is extended from Heaven for them to ascend or descend) have the final word. As they assured Jacob that his descendants would be blessed and restored to their Promised Land, they designate the Apostolic Church as the site of the Lord's Return:

"Men of Galilee...This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven."

                     

by Benvenuto Tisi (1481-1559)