Thank you, once again, for your work. Rudolf Steiner is mentioned several times in your essays. Are you aware of the Rudolf Steiner Archives? They are extremely helpful in understanding his thought and how it has impinged upon Christianity overall, and especially Catholicism. Here is a link from the “Lectures” tab of the Archives that includes three talks, given in 1920, on Roman Catholicism. Well worth the read per the current topic! As are many other of the Lectures.
These guys are behind the times. The strange cult of the Shakers (only two remaining members) had belief in God the Father and Mother Wisdom more than two hundred years ago.
And this line: "a bridge between world religions." Hmm. The abyss cannot be bridged. Years ago a friend of mine asked a college student what he was studying. The answer: "Comparative religion." My friend said, "I'm a Catholic and there's no comparison."
As an Apostle of Our Lady of Fatima, this article really cuts to the marrow. Our Lady is our Co-Redemptrix, and this for three reasons: 1. Her prayers wooed down the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation, and She gave her Fiat to the ineffable Mystery of the Incarnation. 2. Her Station at the Foot of the Cross as Mother of Sorrows, where she participated personally and immediately in the Redemption of each one of us, and 3. Her prayers in the Cenacle in Jerusalem during that first Novena after the Ascension, which again Wooed the Holy Ghost on Pentecost, resulting in the Birthday of Our Holy Mother the Church. Our Lady, for the same reasons, is Mediatrix of all Grace. All Graces come through Mary, especially those of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. At every Mass, at the Epiclesis, as it were, Our Lady of Sorrows cries in Travail, as the Eternal High Priest is made present on the Altar through the actions of the Eternal High Priest. [Those of you going to Bogus Ordo "Unicorn Masses", where the Conciliar Church plays Dress Up, should realize that, unless the Priest says "Eucharistic Prayer #1" your "Mass" has no Epiclesis, and you can list another reason why it is invalid... but I digress...] Our Lady enjoys a unique relationship with the Most Holy Trinity, being Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, and Spouse of the Holy Ghost. All that being said, Our Lady is NOT Divine. She does not Eternally Process from the Three Persons, as the Son proceeds form the Father as the Eternal Word Spoken by the Father, and the Holy Ghost is the Divine Embrace of Father and Son. [Which is why Orthodox, Muslims, Protestants, and Jews do not worship the same God I worship, the Orthodox worshiping a Monolithic Father from Who proceeds both Son and Holy Ghost as Sub-Principles, the Muslims worshiping a completely Monolithic Deity, and God only knows what Talmudic Jews worship... themselves, perhaps???... but I digress again... a thousand pardons...] Our Lady is NOT Optional. She is Our True Mother and part of the Warp and Woof of the Divine Economy. Not to recognize her place is to distort Christianity and to insult the Triune Godhead.
Pius XII demoted Our Lady. His abominable and execracible "Feast of the Queenship of Our Lady" on May 31st makes Our Lady merely the "First among the Saints" and therefore optional. Our Lady becomes a Wallflower, an Ornament, a nice decoration above a side altar, but not essential to our redemption. She is no longer "Fair as the Moon, Bright as the Sun, Terrible as an Army in Battle array. No, now we can go directly to Our Lord Jesus Christ, as Protestants say they can do, and have no need for the prayers of the Most Holy Rosary, which becomes an optional devotion, like Sacred Heart Novenas and the Golden Arrow. May 31st is the Traditional Date for the feast of Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces, which had a Mass in the Tridentine Missal. (Many of the Propers for the Feast of the Immaculate Heart were lifted directly from this Mass.)
And now here comes Trad Inc to give us what the Scholastics would call the "Error to Excess"- placing Our Lady on the par with the Divine.
The net effect here is going to bounce Devotion to the Immaculate Heart from one side of the proverbial Net to the other, with Catholics no longer understanding Our Lady as the Fathers of the Church understood her.
The Antidote is to read St Louis Marie de Montfort and St Alphonsus Ligouri, to be absolutely Devoted to Our Lady of Fatima and to do everything possible to spread True Devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
The Vatican II heresiarchs repackaged the papacy so that “tradition” and “development of doctrine” would let them bring in ecumenism, syncretism and universalism. The R&R folk, not able to, or refusing to, distinguish the revisionist papacy installed in Catholic precincts, have been saying “But heees poooope “ for a long time, but in the meantime, have destroyed the very meaning of the office of Vicar of Christ. Just as charismatic delusions flowed into the life of the laity desperate for Divine, and being walled off from it, now this is steadily flowing in through the cracks of a demolition of tradition that claims tradition was undone by too much papalism, and go in search of something else to quell the thirst denied by the Roman squatters.
It seems you’ve done little to no reading of the source material here. This is a lazy misrepresentation. Quite lame to condemn something you haven’t taken the time to actually understand.
To those who think they’ve gleaned something about sophiology from this post, please take a look at what Bohme(Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), Solovyov, Blok, Shmakov, Florensky, Bulgakov, and Tomberg actually have to say on the matter. I think you’ll find these thinkers are a lot more idiosyncratic, sophisticated, and nuanced than this article of straw makes them out to be.
A very good piece. Jean Hani’s “The Black Virgin” is a notable example of this Kabbalistic re-interpretation of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a sort of Pagan Mother Goddess à la Hera / the kaballistic Shekinah you mentioned (in addition the book also serves as a vehicle for other of his vile heresies notably his repudiation of St. Paul and the concept of chastity). As you say this serves to depersonalise the Blessed Virgin under the guise of a “high Mariology” (these perennialists are very fond of using sophistic - pun not intended - and contradictory reasoning to obfuscate the fundamentals of their doctrine)
Have you ever read the Mass for the Immaculate Conception? Take a look at the Epistle...from Proverbs. It might interest you to know that the lines being explored by some of the thinking you condemn is also in many ways present intimately in Catholic Liturgy.
Since the Vatican II church has been supernaturally eviscerated, and nature abhors a vacuum, there is a strong tendency for V2 Catholics to try to fill the vacuum with unhealthy spiritual things like sophiology, and even more so emotionalism (Charismatic Movement) and private revelations unapproved or condemned by the Church, e.g. Medjugorje, which comes to mind above all. On that see talks by E Michael Jones, and also "Medjugorje: It's Not the Madonna But the Devil" by Fr Luigi Villa (d. 2012), a spiritual son of Padre Pio: ia600402.us.archive.org/7/items/CV102007Medjugore/CV%2010%202007%20Medjugore.pdf
You can add Akita to the list, and the "Divine Mercy". In my view, there has not been an authentic apparition since Our Lady of Fatima. But, the more one studies Fatima, the more one realizes that that is all they need.
I would add Marpingen to the list of Marian fakes. This village in the Saarland has been the site of TWO fake apparitions, in 1876 and 1999. That makes it unique, as far as I know. For a while after 1876 it was attracting more pilgrims than Lourdes. Not surprising, these 19th century "visions" happened at a time of huge religious, cultural and political upheaval.
I would add Marpingen to the list of Marian fakes. This village in the Saarland has been the site of TWO fake apparitions, in 1876 and 1999. That makes it unique, as far as I know. For a while after 1876 it was attracting more pilgrims than Lourdes. Not surprising, these 19th century "visions" happened at a time of huge religious, cultural and political upheaval.
Thank you, once again, for your work. Rudolf Steiner is mentioned several times in your essays. Are you aware of the Rudolf Steiner Archives? They are extremely helpful in understanding his thought and how it has impinged upon Christianity overall, and especially Catholicism. Here is a link from the “Lectures” tab of the Archives that includes three talks, given in 1920, on Roman Catholicism. Well worth the read per the current topic! As are many other of the Lectures.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA198/English/UNK1969/RomCat_index.html
These guys are behind the times. The strange cult of the Shakers (only two remaining members) had belief in God the Father and Mother Wisdom more than two hundred years ago.
And this line: "a bridge between world religions." Hmm. The abyss cannot be bridged. Years ago a friend of mine asked a college student what he was studying. The answer: "Comparative religion." My friend said, "I'm a Catholic and there's no comparison."
As an Apostle of Our Lady of Fatima, this article really cuts to the marrow. Our Lady is our Co-Redemptrix, and this for three reasons: 1. Her prayers wooed down the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation, and She gave her Fiat to the ineffable Mystery of the Incarnation. 2. Her Station at the Foot of the Cross as Mother of Sorrows, where she participated personally and immediately in the Redemption of each one of us, and 3. Her prayers in the Cenacle in Jerusalem during that first Novena after the Ascension, which again Wooed the Holy Ghost on Pentecost, resulting in the Birthday of Our Holy Mother the Church. Our Lady, for the same reasons, is Mediatrix of all Grace. All Graces come through Mary, especially those of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. At every Mass, at the Epiclesis, as it were, Our Lady of Sorrows cries in Travail, as the Eternal High Priest is made present on the Altar through the actions of the Eternal High Priest. [Those of you going to Bogus Ordo "Unicorn Masses", where the Conciliar Church plays Dress Up, should realize that, unless the Priest says "Eucharistic Prayer #1" your "Mass" has no Epiclesis, and you can list another reason why it is invalid... but I digress...] Our Lady enjoys a unique relationship with the Most Holy Trinity, being Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, and Spouse of the Holy Ghost. All that being said, Our Lady is NOT Divine. She does not Eternally Process from the Three Persons, as the Son proceeds form the Father as the Eternal Word Spoken by the Father, and the Holy Ghost is the Divine Embrace of Father and Son. [Which is why Orthodox, Muslims, Protestants, and Jews do not worship the same God I worship, the Orthodox worshiping a Monolithic Father from Who proceeds both Son and Holy Ghost as Sub-Principles, the Muslims worshiping a completely Monolithic Deity, and God only knows what Talmudic Jews worship... themselves, perhaps???... but I digress again... a thousand pardons...] Our Lady is NOT Optional. She is Our True Mother and part of the Warp and Woof of the Divine Economy. Not to recognize her place is to distort Christianity and to insult the Triune Godhead.
Pius XII demoted Our Lady. His abominable and execracible "Feast of the Queenship of Our Lady" on May 31st makes Our Lady merely the "First among the Saints" and therefore optional. Our Lady becomes a Wallflower, an Ornament, a nice decoration above a side altar, but not essential to our redemption. She is no longer "Fair as the Moon, Bright as the Sun, Terrible as an Army in Battle array. No, now we can go directly to Our Lord Jesus Christ, as Protestants say they can do, and have no need for the prayers of the Most Holy Rosary, which becomes an optional devotion, like Sacred Heart Novenas and the Golden Arrow. May 31st is the Traditional Date for the feast of Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces, which had a Mass in the Tridentine Missal. (Many of the Propers for the Feast of the Immaculate Heart were lifted directly from this Mass.)
And now here comes Trad Inc to give us what the Scholastics would call the "Error to Excess"- placing Our Lady on the par with the Divine.
The net effect here is going to bounce Devotion to the Immaculate Heart from one side of the proverbial Net to the other, with Catholics no longer understanding Our Lady as the Fathers of the Church understood her.
The Antidote is to read St Louis Marie de Montfort and St Alphonsus Ligouri, to be absolutely Devoted to Our Lady of Fatima and to do everything possible to spread True Devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
The Vatican II heresiarchs repackaged the papacy so that “tradition” and “development of doctrine” would let them bring in ecumenism, syncretism and universalism. The R&R folk, not able to, or refusing to, distinguish the revisionist papacy installed in Catholic precincts, have been saying “But heees poooope “ for a long time, but in the meantime, have destroyed the very meaning of the office of Vicar of Christ. Just as charismatic delusions flowed into the life of the laity desperate for Divine, and being walled off from it, now this is steadily flowing in through the cracks of a demolition of tradition that claims tradition was undone by too much papalism, and go in search of something else to quell the thirst denied by the Roman squatters.
It seems you’ve done little to no reading of the source material here. This is a lazy misrepresentation. Quite lame to condemn something you haven’t taken the time to actually understand.
To those who think they’ve gleaned something about sophiology from this post, please take a look at what Bohme(Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), Solovyov, Blok, Shmakov, Florensky, Bulgakov, and Tomberg actually have to say on the matter. I think you’ll find these thinkers are a lot more idiosyncratic, sophisticated, and nuanced than this article of straw makes them out to be.
A very good piece. Jean Hani’s “The Black Virgin” is a notable example of this Kabbalistic re-interpretation of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a sort of Pagan Mother Goddess à la Hera / the kaballistic Shekinah you mentioned (in addition the book also serves as a vehicle for other of his vile heresies notably his repudiation of St. Paul and the concept of chastity). As you say this serves to depersonalise the Blessed Virgin under the guise of a “high Mariology” (these perennialists are very fond of using sophistic - pun not intended - and contradictory reasoning to obfuscate the fundamentals of their doctrine)
Have you ever read the Mass for the Immaculate Conception? Take a look at the Epistle...from Proverbs. It might interest you to know that the lines being explored by some of the thinking you condemn is also in many ways present intimately in Catholic Liturgy.
Since the Vatican II church has been supernaturally eviscerated, and nature abhors a vacuum, there is a strong tendency for V2 Catholics to try to fill the vacuum with unhealthy spiritual things like sophiology, and even more so emotionalism (Charismatic Movement) and private revelations unapproved or condemned by the Church, e.g. Medjugorje, which comes to mind above all. On that see talks by E Michael Jones, and also "Medjugorje: It's Not the Madonna But the Devil" by Fr Luigi Villa (d. 2012), a spiritual son of Padre Pio: ia600402.us.archive.org/7/items/CV102007Medjugore/CV%2010%202007%20Medjugore.pdf
Another one is Garabandal:
avoicefromthedesert.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/garabandal-apparition-of-the-devil-1961
“The devil rejoices when people seek private revelations.” – St John of the Cross
You can add Akita to the list, and the "Divine Mercy". In my view, there has not been an authentic apparition since Our Lady of Fatima. But, the more one studies Fatima, the more one realizes that that is all they need.
In the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
I would add Marpingen to the list of Marian fakes. This village in the Saarland has been the site of TWO fake apparitions, in 1876 and 1999. That makes it unique, as far as I know. For a while after 1876 it was attracting more pilgrims than Lourdes. Not surprising, these 19th century "visions" happened at a time of huge religious, cultural and political upheaval.
https://www.amazon.com/Marpingen-Apparitions-Virgin-Nineteenth-Century-Germany/dp/0679418431
David Blackbourn's fascinating book does not include the 1999 fake.
I would add Marpingen to the list of Marian fakes. This village in the Saarland has been the site of TWO fake apparitions, in 1876 and 1999. That makes it unique, as far as I know. For a while after 1876 it was attracting more pilgrims than Lourdes. Not surprising, these 19th century "visions" happened at a time of huge religious, cultural and political upheaval.
https://www.amazon.com/Marpingen-Apparitions-Virgin-Nineteenth-Century-Germany/dp/0679418431
David Blackbourn's fascinating book does not include the 1999 fake.