Henry Edward Cardinal Manning wrote this in 1877 after the Catholic Church had been despoiled of all of her possessions and the Pope had become the prisoner of the Vatican. The need for the Pope to be free not only spiritually, but also politically is laid out very well by Cardinal Manning. In fact, this independence is essential to world peace.Cardinal Manning says: “All Christians believe that when our Lord sent out His Apostles, He gave to them a supreme spiritual power to govern the Church. Catholics further believe that He had already given that power in its fulness to Peter, their head and chief, the foundation of His Church; and, after He ascended into Heaven, His Vicar upon earth. We believe also that this Divine power exists in the world at this moment. It exists in the office of Peter, perpetuated in the person of his successor.”“My purpose then will be to make clear the four following points: First, What is the sovereignty or independence, or temporal power, if men like so to call it, with which God in His Providence has invested the Head of His Church upon earth. Secondly, What is the violation of that independence and sovereignty by the acts of violence which have been perpetrated in the last seven years. Thirdly, What have been and what must be the consequences of that violation. And, lastly, What is, therefore, the duty of every Catholic throughout the world. And I will go further: I will say, What is the duty of every Christian who believes that the Word of God is supreme over all human law, and that the authority of the Christian Church on earth is independent of all civil government. And in this I shall appeal to the multitudes of upright Christian hearts in these three kingdoms, who, though they be separated from us by, I am sorry to say, many points of faith, by more, I fear, than points, by many wide distances, which I would fain see closed up, nevertheless do openly, manfully, and justly defend the liberty of the truth and of the Church of God in the sense in which they understand it.This sovereignty I cannot better explain than in these two sentences-It is the dependence of the Head of the Church upon God alone; and his consequent independence of any human authority. These two sentences include the whole subject. Now, we often hear it said, and I have heard it said within these last days, that "in the beginning the Head of the Church, or the Bishop of Rome, as men call him, had no temporal power. Why should he have now what he had not then?" Secondly, they say "He was subject to the Roman Emperors then; why can he not be subject to any civil power now?" Thirdly, they ask, "If it had been the will of God to give him a sovereignty of his own~ He would have done so; but, if He did, as you affirm, then He has taken it away." Now, these are three common objections. There is a fourth, indeed, which I may mention in passing only to dismiss it. They say, "If the temporal power be essential to the spiritual, how was it that for so many centuries the Popes exercised their spiritual power without it?
But I think we shall both judge it to be a melancholy spectacle when we see the House of Commons led away by declamations on these topics from the laws which have created Christian Europe and all that is precious in the English constitution, to approve a policy subversive of European society...The policy which violates them is immoral: its end is public lawlessness and its success will be its own punishment Now I have no deeper conviction than that this anticatholic movement, led or stimulated by England, will have its perfect success, and will reign for a time supreme; and next that, perhaps before we arc in our graves all who have partaken in it-princes, statesmen and people-will be scourged by a universal conflict with revolution, and a European war, to which 1793 and the wars of the first empire are a faint prelude... It seems as if men had lost their light. How otherwise can we explain the blindness which cannot see that the conflict of France and Austria has weakened the Catholic society of Europe, and has given to the Protestant politics of England and Prussia a most dangerous predominance? It will not be long before a European war will wear out and waste the powers of the Christian society including Protestant and Catholic alike, and will give a fatal predominance to the antichristian society, or revolution, which is every whore preparing for the last struggle, and for its supremacy. The Catholic society of Europe weakened, the Christian society will soon in turn give way. Then comes the scourge. The conviction I feel that a great retribution is impending over the anticatholic movement of England, France, and Italy is rendered all the more certain by the fact that the critical point in the whole conflict, the key of the whole and the last success to be gained is the dethronement of the Vicar of our Redeemer." Cardinal Henry Manning (1808-1892) St. Alphonsus writes: "a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery." Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: "There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals!' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty!" We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original The original has been inspected and many imperfections in the existing copy have been corrected. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.
St. Alphonsus writes: “a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery.” Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: “There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals!' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty!” We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original. The original has been inspected and some imperfections may remain. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.
St. Alphonsus writes: “a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery.” Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: “There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals!' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty!” We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original The original has been inspected and many imperfections in the existing copy have been corrected. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.
Here we have another great work by a Doctor of the Church, none other than St Alphonsus M. Liguori himself. This work will lay a greater understanding of the Psalms & Canticles which will hopefully in turn lead to greater spiritual benefit to those who use this work. Written in Latin and English, side by side. Unedited. 548 pages.
ON entering the church, ask yourself, as Blessed Berchmans was accustomed to do: Where am I going? I am going to present myself before the Eternal Father, to offer Him the sacrifice of His Divine Son. Then, knowing that you are in the presence of God, kneel with deepest respect before the holy altar. Renew your general intention to honour God; add to it expressly the offering of your Communion in union with the objects of the Sacrifice. Propose to yourself a special intention, which you may plainly express, so as not to content yourself with vague prayer; which are apt to be made without sufficient fervour. Consider this meditation: THE soul, a simple and spiritual being, has need of motion, of food, and of rest, like the body. Being created in sympathy with God, it finds in Jesus Christ its type, its sphere, its aliment Being made in the divine image, its activity is thought, its light is truth, its rest is in confiding prayer. In the soul, all activity and all lively or profound feelings tend to produce actions equivalent to their strength; it is then necessary for its welfare that it should be united to Jesus Christ on earth, because He alone can feed it with food suitable for it, capable of developing its activity; of satisfying its needs. In the Holy Eucharist our Lord places Himself at the disposal of the soul. One Communion ought to be enough to attach us irrevocably to Him. Between God and the soul there exists a resemblance, and therefore a harmony; in the beginning there was even a close intimacy. But sin has destroyed the resemblance, and turned the harmony into discord. And now the infinite greatness of God, and our littleness, are brought near to each other, by means of the Incarnation and the Holy Eucharist. Nothing more venerable or more tender can be imagined than the relationship established between Jesus in the Eucharist and the soul of man. This relationship begins upon the blessed day of first Communion, which develops the germ of supernatural life first implanted in us at baptism: and in everyone of our future Communions our Saviour increases and perfects that supernatural life in the soul. I have had a spiritual childhood of which I remember even less than of my bodily infancy. Perhaps the first awakening of reason implanted in my mind the remembrance of some early fault. My youth, though marked by precious graces, yet leaves me the regret that at that age I did not do good without constraint. I deluded myself with passing desires which had not Jesus for their object and end. How carefully I observed the rules laid down for my studies, but how little solicitude I showed to keep faithfully the solemn compact made with my God in presence of the Sacred Host! Still more do I grieve for having afterwards tarnished the beauty of my soul by contact with the world. My soul perhaps loved that imperfect life and desired not its own revival. If I dwell upon those days of error and illusion, it is in order to feel more deeply how much I ought to love Jesus who has delivered me from them. o my Saviour, it was not Thine intention to come into my soul to form with it a passing union only, neither to dwell inactively therein. Thine intention was to make it better. Thou didst seal it with Thy Blood, with the intent that it should retain a sign to call ever to my remembrance Him who for my sake delivered Himself up freely to the bitter death of the Cross for me. Thou hast signed me with that sacred unction which Thou hast Thyself received, and caused my name of Christian to be formed out of Thy name of Christ. May that mysterious sign shield me from all my enemies. Preserve to my soul the health which Thou hast restored to it, and keep it ever under the direction of Thy grace.
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