Virgo Potens

Month of the Precious Blood ~ July 13th The Mystery of the Precious Blood This is what we call the mystery of the Incarnation. It is this which makes creation so magnificent. It [creation] was not merely a beautiful thing which God made as an artificer, and which He set outside of Himself, and kept at a distance from Himself to look at, to admire, to pity, and to love. He always intended to be part of it Himself in a very wonderful way. So that there would have been Jesus and Mary, even if there had never been any sin: only Jesus would not have been crucified, and Mary would not have had any dolours. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Precious Blood: or, The Price of Our Salvation (1860)

Words of Our Lady "Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them." ~ Our Lady of Fatima Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

AT FATIMA . . . the principal request of Our Lady was for the sacrifice necessary to fulfillment of daily duty. Fatima’s prescription of sacrifice requires that we accept and offer in reparation for our sins and the sins of the world and the intentions of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, all the trials and vexations of our state of life. In this light, daily duty is not without heroism. It is heroic in its devotion to Our Lady and makes our lives a living rosary. ~ Fatima and the “Way of Divine Love” (Pamphlet)

2 of 2 Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 12th (6) Because pride is the characteristic and most significant sign of the reprobate, as St. Gregory says: “Pride is the most manifest sign of the lost.” [Lib. 34. Mor. cxviii] (7) Because the other vices are easily recognizable, and therefore it is easy to hate them and to amend; but pride is a vice that is not so easily known because it goes masked and disguised in many forms, even putting on the semblance of virtue and the very appearance of humility; thus being a hidden vice it is less easy to escape from it, as is taught in the maxim of St. Ambrose: [Epist. 82] “Hidden things are more difficult to avoid than things known.” ~ Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo (1660-1753), Humility of Heart. Tr. Herbert Cardinal Vaughan (1903).

Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 12th [139. continued. Let us now consider wherein lies the terrible danger of this vice.] (5) Because as we have need of some special grace of God in order to enable us to do any of those good works that pertain to our eternal salvation, so there is no vice which prevents the influx of grace so much as pride; because “God resists the proud.” [James iv, 6] (continued)

Month of the Precious Blood ~ July 12th The Mystery of the Precious Blood [T]here is a sense in which creation was eternal. It was eternally in the mind of God. It was one of His eternal ideas, always before Him; so that He never existed without this idea of creation in His all-wise mind and in His all-powerful intention. Moreover it was always part of His intention that the Creator should become as it were part of His own creation, and that an Uncreated Person should really and truly assume a created nature and be born of a created mother. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Precious Blood: or, The Price of Our Salvation (1860)

AT FATIMA . . . the principal request of Our Lady was for the sacrifice necessary to fulfillment of daily duty. On close observation, heroic acts and sacrifices are quite often done-and-over-with in an instant. Conversely, in faithful fulfillment of daily duty, there is too much time to experience the temptation to weaken, to rationalize and to anticipate, which is the scourge of fortitude. Grace has to be purchased often with dry prayer in which you sometimes feel that God and Our Lady are far away. ~ Fatima and the “Way of Divine Love” (Pamphlet)

2 of 2 Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 11th (4) Because if the other vices are of quick growth, we can also rid ourselves of them quickly; but pride is the first vice we learn, and it is also the last to leave us as St. Augustine says: [Enarr. 2 in Ps. cxviii] “For those who are returning to God, pride is the last thing to be overcome, as it was the first cause of their leaving God. (continued) ~ Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo (1660-1753), Humility of Heart. Tr. Herbert Cardinal Vaughan (1903).

Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 11th [139. continued. Let us now consider wherein lies the terrible danger of this vice.] (3) Because after having fought against and overcome the other vices we may justly rejoice, but as soon as we begin to rejoice that we have triumphed over pride it triumphs over us, and becomes victorious over us in that very act for which we are praising ourselves for conquering it. St. Augustine says: “When a man rejoices that he has overcome pride, he lifts up his head for very joy and says: Behold, I triumph thus because thou triumphest.” [Aug., Lib. de Nat. et Gr. cap. xxvii] (continued)

Month of the Precious Blood ~ July 11th The Mystery of the Precious Blood Salvation is through the Precious Blood. We will take that for our study of Jesus this time. When love is humble, it prays with David to be washed more and more from its iniquity. But there is no washing away of iniquity, except in the Precious Blood of our most dear Redeemer. When love is bold, it prays to be set on fire with the flames which Jesus came to kindle. But it is only the Precious Blood which makes our heart beat hotly with the love of Him. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Precious Blood: or, The Price of Our Salvation (1860)

AT FATIMA . . . the principal request of Our Lady was for the sacrifice necessary to fulfillment of daily duty. This mission is THE FAITHFUL FULFILLMENT OF DAILY DUTY AS REQUIRED BY OUR STATE IN LIFE. . . If the faithful fulfillment of it can untie the knot of evil strangling the world; would it not be reasonable to say that man’s abandonment of daily duty was, in the last analysis, the cause of his drift from God, since this drift is always preceded by apathy which in turn is preceded by abandonment of daily duty? In this light daily duty is not mundane. It is profound. ~ Fatima and the “Way of Divine Love” (Pamphlet)

2 of 2 Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 10th (2) Because the other vices are to be feared only when we are disposed to evil; but pride, says St. Augustine, insinuates itself even when we are trying to do good. “Other vices are to be feared in sins, pride is to be feared even in good deeds.” [Epist. cxviii] And Saint Isidore says: “Pride is worse than every other vice from the fact that it springs even from virtue and its guilt is less felt.” [Lib. de Summ. Bono] (continued) ~ Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo (1660-1753), Humility of Heart. Tr. Herbert Cardinal Vaughan (1903).

Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 10th 139. Let us now consider wherein lies the terrible danger of this vice. (1) Because while all other vices destroy only their opposite virtues, as wantonness destroys chastity, greediness temperance, and anger gentleness, etc., pride destroys all virtue, and is according to St. Gregory like a cancer which not only eats away one limb but attacks the whole body: “Like a widespread pestilential disease.” [lib. xxxiv, Mor., cap. 18] (continued)

Je suis Le Bon Pasteur I am The Good Shepherd Month of the Precious Blood ~ July 10th The Mystery of the Precious Blood Why are our hearts so cold? Why is our love so faithless, and our faith so unloving? We try, and still we do not love as we wish to love. We try again, and love more; and yet it is sadly short of the love we ought to have. We strive and strive, and still we only languish when we ought to burn. He longs for our love, sweet covetous lover of souls as He is. He longs for our love; and we long for nothing so much as to love Him. Surely there must be a time and a place, when both He and we shall be satisfied: but the place will be heaven, and the time nothing else than the great timeless eternity. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Precious Blood: or, The Price of Our Salvation (1860)

2 of 2 Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 9th Job speaks thus of the sinner: “He hath strengthened himself against the Almighty,” [Job xv, 25] and in this sense one can also say of pride that it is the greatest of all sins, because the proud rebel against God, setting themselves in opposition to God, nor do they mind displeasing God in order to please themselves, leaving the All to attach themselves to their own nothingness, as St. Augustine says: “Abandoning God, he seeks his own will, and by so doing draws near to nothingness, hence the proud according to Scripture are called doers of their own will,” [Lib. IV, De Civ. Dei, cap. xiv] which is to say with St. Paul: “Lovers of themselves.” And the same holy father makes this reflection, that even venial sins committed more from frailty than from malice may become mortal if they are aggravated by pride. “Sins creep in through human weakness, and although small they become great and heavy if pride adds to their weight and measure.” [Lib. de Sancta Virginit. cap. ii] But since God has sworn to detect this vice: “The Lord God hath sworn by His Own Soul, I detest the pride of Jacob,” [Amos vi, 8] what wonder is it that He should punish it more than all vices? St. Augustine remarks with singular force that amongst all the sins by which sinners fall, none is so great, so ruinous, or so grave as that of pride. “Amongst all the falls of sinners none is so great as that of the proud.” [Ps. xxxv] ~ Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo (1660-1753), Humility of Heart. Tr. Herbert Cardinal Vaughan (1903).

Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 9th 138. Pride holds the first place among the deadly sins, and St. Thomas not only places it amongst the deadly sins, but above them, as transcending them all, the king of vices which includes in his cortège all the other vices, therefore it is called in Holy Scripture: “The root of all evil,” [Tim. vi, 10] “The beginning of all sin.” [Ecclus x, 15] because as the root of the tree is hidden under the earth and sends all its strength up into the branches, so pride remains hidden in the heart and secretly influences every sin through its action. Therefore whenever we commit a mortal sin, we are in reality opposing and directing our own will against the will of God. (continued)

Month of the Precious Blood ~ July 9th The Mystery of the Precious Blood What depths there are in Jesus, and how wonderfully He lights them up with the splendours of His eternal love! Do we not feel every day more and more strongly, that we must be more for Jesus than we are, that of all growing things divine love is the most growing, that all idea of a limit to our love of Jesus, or of moderation in our service of Him, is a folly as well as a disloyalty? He was the brightness of innumerable lives and the sweetness of innumerable sorrows, when He was but the expectation of longing Israel. What must He be now, when He has come, when He has lived, and shed His Blood, and died, and risen, and ascended, and then come back again in all the unutterable endearments of the Blessed Sacrament? ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Precious Blood: or, The Price of Our Salvation (1860)

2 of 2 Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 8th This is the explanation which St. Paul gives to it, and as St. Augustine observes, “All these evils flow from the source which he first mentions–—self-love,” [tr. 123 in Jo. lib. iv, De Civ. Dei, c. xiii] and as the same Saint says, “This excess of self-love is only pride.” Therefore we can conclude from this that whoever overcomes pride overcomes a whole host of sins; according to the explanation given by St. Gregory [Lib. 31, Mor. c. xvii] of this text of Job: “He smelleth the battle afar off, and the shouting of the army.” [Job xxxix, 25] ~ Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo (1660-1753), Humility of Heart. Tr. Herbert Cardinal Vaughan (1903).

Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus ~ July 8th 137. Pride is placed among the deadly sins, because it is from pride that so many other sins are derived, and that is why St. Paul, seeing the innumerable wickednesses of the world, called them to the notice of his disciple Timothy, saying: “Look how many are haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,” [Tim. iii, 2] without love for their neighbour or for God. From whence do you suppose all these vices derive their origin? This is the source: the inordinate love which everyone has for himself. “Men are lovers of themselves.” (continued)

Month of the Precious Blood ~ July 8th We care for no science, but the science of redeeming grace. The cross of Christ is our single wisdom. Once we wished for many things, and aimed at many things. But we are changed now. Our lives are amazingly simplified, simplified by the fear of sin and by the love of God. Our anxiety now is, that all this may remain. We fear another change, especially a change back again. We can think calmly of no change except from little love to much love, and from much love to more love. The right of Jesus to our love, to our best love, to all our love, is becoming plainer and plainer to us. His exceeding loveliness is growing more and more attractive, because it is revealing itself to us every day like a new revelation. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Precious Blood: or, The Price of Our Salvation (1860)