CAPG's Blog 

Saint Robert Bellarmine

"Today, therefore, if some are called "Martinists," or Lutherans, some Zwinglians, orthers Calvinists, etc, yet no one ever called us after some man, it is certain that ours is the true Church." St. Robert Bellarmine

"It is granted to few to recognize the true Church amid the darkness of so many schisms and heresies, and to fewer still so to love the truth which they have seens as to fly to its embrace."

Quotes:

"As to their alleged prophecy of Rome's downfall, he said that he preferred to believe another one which ran, Upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

"Preachers who are anxious to do their duty [he said on one occasion] must not suffer themselves to be frightened away from wholesome teaching, merely because by delivering it they may make enemies among their flock. He is but a sad and sorry evangelist who seeks his own and not God's glory, and desires to be loved and praised by the people, instead of bengin all his energies to make God loved and praised by them. much better would it be for him to plough in the fields or beg his bread, than preach - aratorem potius quam oratorem agere. Suppose a devoted husband, who is on a journey, sends his wife some little gift or token by a messenger, and the fellow uses it to ingratiate himself with the lady, would we not rightly account him a scoundrel, and adulterer at heart? Tell me now, if Christ the Heavenly Spouse of Holy Church sends her a message through a preacher, and he, instead of delivering it faithfully, tries to appear a grand fellow on account of his commission, and uses the very Scriptures themselves to show off his eloquance and win the world's applause - tell me, I say, what better is he in the eyes of God than an adulterer?

"If a man only understood the reverence due to God's holy Name he would choose gladly to have his two lips stitched together rather than utter it in vain." 

"The sins of his people and, above all the sins of priests, weighed like a great burden on this perfect priest's heart.

What will become of them [he asked], those sad traitors who sell Christ daily for less than Judas did, for a woman's kiss, or a dance, or a cup of wine? When celebrating the tremendous mystery of the Mass, a priest knows right well that he is in the Holy of Holies, surrounded by choirs of adoring angels who tremble with awe. Think, then, what a matter for tears it is, to see one so placed, cold and inattentive, and in such a hurry that it looks as if he though there was a band of robbers on his track. We all proclaim to the world that Christ Himself is present in the Sacrament of the Altar, and still some of us act, when wwe have Him in our hands, as though there was nothing we believed less, or as if we held a God of metal or stone, who could neither hear, nor see, nor feel... We place Him - the Lord of Glory, whose Name the angels hardly dare to breathe - on a corporal which we should blush to see spread on a servants' table, while His altars are defiled with dust and given over to spiders as a grand place where they can weve their webs undisturbed and hunt flied contentedly... I could tolerate many other abuses, which I shall not mention, of only the corporals and purificators were kept clean, and I beg and implore all good priests, zealous for the honor of Our Lord, to admonish and punish unsparingly those contemners of His Divine Majesty." The Life and Work of Blessed Robert Francis Cardinal Bellarmine by Fr. James Brodrick Sj. 1928

Our Lady of Fatima, St. Joseph Catholic Church, Raleigh NC

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.

• "In August of 1917 Our Lady told the children, "pray much and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them." As to the kinds of sacrifices Our Lady was asking, she revealed to Sr. Lucia on one occasion: "The good Lord is allowing Himself to be appeased . . . but He Himself complains most bitterly and sorrowfully about the small number of souls in His grace who are willing to renounce whatever the observance of His laws requires of them."

• " Many persons," Sr. Lucia explained, "feeling that the word penance implies great austerities, and not feeling that they have the strength for great sacrifices, become discouraged and continue a life of lukewarmness and sin." Then she said Our Lord explained to her: "The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require." Source: Rosary Center

Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, Secretary of State to Pope Pius XI. in 1933:

“Suppose, dear friend, that Communism is the most visible among the organs of subversion against the Church and the Tradition of Divine Revelation. Thus, we will witness the invasion of everything that is spiritual: philosophy, science, law, teaching, the arts, the media, literature, theater, and religion.

I am concerned about the confidences of the Virgin to the little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of the Good Lady in face of the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the alteration of the Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul, would represent.

I hear around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her remorseful for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must affirm her past, or else she will dig her own grave.

I will fight this battle with the greatest energy on the inside of the Church, just as outside of it, even if the forces of evil may one day take advantage of my person, my actions, or my writings, as they try today to deform the history of the Church. All human heresies which alter the word of God are so that a greater light might appear.

These underdeveloped peoples will save the Church, Eminence. A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God, that His Son is only a symbol, a philosophy like so many others. And in churches, Christians will search for the red lamp where Jesus awaits them, like the sinful woman crying out before the empty tomb: ‘Where have they taken Him?’

Then, priests will rise up from Africa, from Asia, from America, formed here in this seminary of the Missions, who will say and who will proclaim that the ‘bread of life’ is not ordinary bread, that the mother of the God-man is not a mother like others. And they will be cut to pieces to testify that Christianity is not a religion like others, since her head is the Son of God, and the Church is His Church.” Pie XII Devant l'Histoire 1972