To our Holy Father, Pope Francis, the Father of the Poor

WE find ourselves in the situation of the “ poor of Yahweh” who, in the last times of the Old Covenant, gave forth their heartrending complaint by the Psalms, in order to appeal for the coming of the Messiah, the Saviour promised from the beginning (Gn 3:15) Who would be brought forth by a Virgin (Is 7:14).

When the time came, He was born of the Virgin Mary, inaugurating the last times by the New and Eternal Covenant, and this inspired prayer has never ceased rising to Heaven to appeal for the return of this Son born of a Woman, the Word of God become flesh in order to give us this flesh as a food for eternal life.

“BLESSED ARE THE POOR”

At the end of our Community retreat which, in this autumn of 2014, consisted in listening to our Father, Georges de Nantes, explaining the Psalms to us, we became fond of these “ poor of Israel.” We wanted to imitate them because we understood that they prepared the Gospel, that begins with Jesus’ first words: “ Beati pauperes spiritu.”

In saying this, Jesus was not speaking in the abstract; He was not formulating an “ideology of poverty,” as Pope Francis reprovingly calls it, but He was designating a social group that is very distinct from the group of ‘notabilities’ in Israel. These “ poor in spirit ” were the humble, the humiliated, those who, during the centuries of persecution from within and from without, had maintained all the treasures of the Word of God contained in the Bible with faith, hope and enthusiasm. Such were the authors of the Psalms who were followed generation after generation by those who recited them, magnificently preparing the people of Israel for the coming of Jesus and the proclaiming of the Gospel.

They called themselves the ‘anâwîm (the plural of ‘anaw). Before the Exile, the word designated the ‘indigent,’ the “underprivileged,” as Fr. Robert used to say. He was the master of our Father, Georges de Nantes, in the field of exegetics, who endeavoured to approach things by the study of words and their semantics.

After the Exile, this word is encountered once in Zephaniah (3:12) in the sense of a humbling, a moral and spiritual smallness. What is pleasing to God is the indigent, but in a moral sense rather than in an economic or social one: the humble. The words ‘anâw and ‘ani then assume a spiritual meaning coloured with a religious submission to the will of God.

Fr. Robert observed that after the Exile, these two words were employed abundantly by the psalmists, but always in a spiritual sense. He concluded from this that the social context had changed. Before the Exile, it was always social inequalities that stirred up the indignation of the prophets. After the Exile, the rich still oppressed the poor, but the inequality, or rather the injustice, the violence was shifted from the economic to the religious sphere It became a “tension,” of which Jeremiah, a contemporary of the Exile, was the emblematic witness: “When we read Jeremiah, Fr. Robert used to say, we find the historical type of the ‘poor man’ in it.”

THE PROPHET JEREMIAH.

Jeremiah was oppressed by society for a religious reason, because he clashed with a people that were rebelling against the voice of God Whose faithful spokesman he was as a staunch Yahwist. His worship of God, of His Word, of the Torah was truly sincere and intransigent and, for this reason, he was the object of scorn. He was oppressed and so distressed that he came to curse the day of his birth. No prophet before him had been torn to pieces as he had. Jeremiah called down divine vengeance on his enemies, heaped curses on them and was surprised by the happiness of the godless. In his distress, he complained about his isolation, he inveighed against himself, he accused God of having deceived him, expressing a sorrow never experienced before but which would afflict the psalmists after the return from the Exile and its deceptions.

“O Yahweh, how numerous are my enemies, numerous are they who rise up against me, numerous are they who tell my soul about Elohim: ‘There is no salvation in Him!’” (Ps 3:2-3)

Nevertheless, the divine Word delighted him (Jr 15, 16,) his trust in God remained fully intact.

“ Heal me, Lord, that I may be healed; save me, that I may be saved, for it is You Whom I praise.” (17:14).

He affirmed his fidelity: “ Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, whose hope is Yahweh.” (17:7)

This would be the precise language of the Psalms.

After the return from the Exile, in the fourth century B.C., the faithful Yahwists were faced with schismatic, Samaritan false brothers, and idolatrous, pagan invaders who invoked “ God” under the common name of “ Elohim.” It was a dramatic situation that prefigured the mob of Sadducees, scribes and Pharisees surrounding and confronting Jesus three hundred years later in Jerusalem:

“But You, O Yahweh, You are a shield around me, my glory, and He who exalts my Head.” (Ps 3:4)

The whole of Sacred History passes before us in a single sentence, according to the anthological method dear to the Psalmists:

“ A shield:” Yahweh promised it to Abraham. “ Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”(Gn. 15:1)

“ My glory”: the Hebrews contemplated God’s Glory on Moses’ face when he descended from Mount Sinai (Ex 34:29.)

“My Head:” After the return from the Exile, there was no longer a King in Jerusalem. That is why the psalmist devoted his poem “to David, when he fled from Absalom his son,”five hundred years earlier, an event that momentarily deprived Jerusalem of her King. He yearns for the return of the King, the son of David, as the people of Jerusalem who had remained faithful to David yearned for his return in times past when he was on the run. His prayer would be answered when Yahweh-God descended to earth in order to take over as the head of His people, in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, Christ the King.

“He who exalts my Head:” Jesus will in fact fulfil to the letter these words when He is “ exalted ”on the Cross in order to draw everything to Himself. This is just as Isaiah had foretold concerning the Servant of Yahweh: “ Behold, My servant shall be intelligent, He shall rise, shall grow great, and shall be prodigiously exalted.” (Is. 52:13)

THE SUFFERING SERVANT.

In Psalm 4, which we sing at Compline on Sundays and feast days: Cum invocarem…, this Messiah complains about the insults heaped by men of no account on this divine “ glory” with which He is invested: “O children of men, how long will My glory be outraged? How long will you love vain words? How long will you seek a lie?” (Ps 4:3).

In fact, certain poems of this Deutero-Isaiah whom Fr. de Nantes called ‘the Unknown of the Exile,’ reveal a mysterious figure of the Messiah as the quintessential “poor man.” The “Servant of Yahweh,” as Fr. Robert used to say, became the transcendent archetype of the poor man. The Messiah would not be a glorious King: He would be poor, overwhelmed by the burden; He would die in the annihilation of an expiatory sacrifice offered to redeem the sins of His people.

The Prophet Isaiah had promised “ a great light” brought by the Messiah “ to the people who walked in the darkness” (Is 9:1). Centuries had passed in expectation of this King-Messiah and, far from losing hope, the inspired author demanded:

“Lift up the light of Your Face upon us, O Yahweh!” (Ps 4:7)

This light will bring more joy than what the same prophecy of Isaiah promised (Is 9:2).

“You have put more joy in my heart than at the moment when their grain and must abound.” (Ps 4:8)

What is the source of a joy greater than that of the harvest? “In mutual peace I lie down and sleep, for You, O Yahweh, have made me dwell apart in safety.” (Ps 4:9)

Who then is this man who finds his joy in his humiliated condition? Is he the psalmist himself or the Messiah to come Whose figure he is? Is he like Elijah the Tishbite, who presaged Christ’s death and resurrection? (1 K 19:3-5: cf. Ps 3:6)

This, in any event, was the condition of the Chosen People at the time of the writing of this psalm. Since their return from the Exile, they had been set “ apart” (Nb 23:9), in “ safety” (Dt 33:28), in a poor and devastated territory.

Today, this psalm is the last words of our days because Jesus immolated Himself in a “righteous sacrifice,” (Ps 4:6) without opening His mouth, without a complaint. He assumed the chastisement that gives this “ mutual peace” with God and with our neighbour back to us. (Ps 4:9).

The last evening will be followed by “ one Morning” (Ps 5:4), on which the Risen Jesus will illuminate us in turn with the glory of the Face of His Father, in which He dwells “ apart in safety,” while our enemies will lose ground. For the moment, God does not seem to see them, but it would suffice for Him to turn His eyes towards them to make them falter, collapse, and disappear:

“You destroy those who speak lies. Yahweh abhors bloodthirsty and deceitful men. Even as through the abundance of Your rich mercy I enter Your house, I prostrate myself towards the Hekal, Your ‘Holy,’ filled with fear of You” (Ps 5:7-8)

The “ Hekal” was the second room of the Temple, also called the “ Holy”, which was beyond the “ Vestibule” and before the “ Holy of Holies” where the “ Arc of the Covenant” reposed and where the “real” presence of Yahweh resided.

Thus, while “ascending” to the Temple, the poor of Yahweh did their “noviciate for Heaven,” which the awaited Messiah would one day open to them.

NEITHER SCHISM NOR HERESY

This Temple, however, had to be reconstructed after the return from the Exile! Encouraged by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the ‘sons of the captivity’ had to confront the ‘wicked’: high-ranking pagan officials, Samaritains, corrupt judges and ‘false friends,’ outwardly rallied to Yahwism, but without fear of God or respect for the Law. They were godless, liars and murderous, “bloodthirsty and deceitful men” whom “Yahweh abhors.” (Ps 5:5-7)

We can easily imagine this anarchical society in which the wicked join forces against the good. It suffices to think of certain suburbs, for example to the north or east of Paris, in which gangs of hooligans lay down the law with the complicity of the police, teachers, the Communist Party and the trade unions. The decent people there live in fear of everything because they risk losing their belongings and even their lives! The display windows of shopkeepers are burgled, children on their way to school are in danger; if they complain, they provoke reprisals. This oppressive society was that of the psalmists exposed to a continual war not only material but spiritual:

“For their threshing floor has not been constructed by His mouth: in their midst are things of horror. Their threshing floor is a gaping sepulchre. They make their speech sound sweet.” (Ps 5:10)

The “ threshing floor” is the place where “ Gad went to David and told him: ‘Go up and build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.’” (2 S 24:18) The sacrifice offered by David on this “ threshing floor”, prepared the construction of the Temple that Solomon undertook later on.

In this instance, it refers to a temple that the impious Samaritans built to rival that of Solomon, on Mount Garizim in 328 B.C. This schismatic “ temple” was called a “ threshing floor”, by the Psalmist, who refused to call it a “ temple”, just as we refuse to call a Protestant place of worship a “ church”.

The “ gaping sepulchre” refers to Korah’s rebellion, at the time of the Exodus, against which Yahweh acted ruthlessly: “ the ground beneath them split open, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their families, all of Korah’s men and all their possessions. They went down alive to Sheol with all belonging to them; the earth closed over them, and they perished from the community.” (Nb 16:31-33)

This impressive chastisement should serve as a lesson for the schismatic Samaritans. This is what awaits them! Consequently, whoever takes shelter in Yahweh is deaf to the counsel of fainthearted friends who incite him to break with the Temple of Jerusalem, to commit schism.

“I take shelter in Yahweh; how say you to my soul : ‘Flee your Mountain, bird!’” (Ps 11:1)

The word “ bird” designates the community of faithful Jews whom Yahweh had brought back from Babylon, thus carrying out Hosea’s prophecy: “ Like a bird, they shall come trembling from Egypt, and like a dove from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says Yahweh.”(Ho 11:11) The “ Mountain”is that of Jerusalem, Sion, the holy Mountain of Yahweh, on which the Messiah, Son of God, was anointed (Ps 2:6-7), on which the Temple also is built.

The fight of the faithful Yahwists will remain for centuries the ‘figure’ of the future fight of the Messiah and His Mother against Satan and his henchmen. That is why daily the Church finds the prayer that supports her in her fight against heresy and schism in the Psalms: “ I take shelter in Yahweh.”

JESUS-MARY.

The Psalms make mention of the Mother of the Messiah, but never of a man who is His father:

“I am poor and oppressed. Preserve my life, for I am loyal; save (hôša ‘) Your servant who trusts in You […]. O God, the arrogant have risen against me; a ruthless band has sought my life; to You they pay no heed. But You, Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, most loving and true. Turn to me, have pity on me; give Your strength to Your servant; save this Child of Your Handmaid.” (Ps 86:1-2 and 14-16)

The last verb of this passage already announces the name of the “ son:” hôšî ‘âh from the verb yaša ‘, from which derives the name of Jesus: Yehošû ‘a, “ Yahweh saves.” (Mt. 2:21) He will be the Son of the Virgin promised by the prophet Isaiah: “ The Virgin shall be with Child, and bear a Son, and shall name Him Emmanuel.” (Is 7:14; Mt 1:22-23.) This prophecy can be dated from 734 B.C.

Thirty years later, the prophet Micah referred to this oracle in the text that would lead the Magi to Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth:

“ But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah the least of the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me One Who is to rule over Israel; His origin is from of old, from ancient times. Therefore Yahweh will abandon them, until the time when She Who is to give birth has borne” (Mi 5:1-2)

The Psalms reflect these times of ‘abandonment’ that formed a well-disposed people, the poor of Yahweh, to receive Jesus and Mary, the object of its imploring expectation:

“Have pity on me, Yahweh, see the state of humiliation in which those who hate me hold me! Make me rise above the gates of death.” (Ps 9:14)

Verse 14 explains the enigmatic title of the Psalm: “To the choirmaster, on death, to the Son, a psalm to David.” (Ps 9:1). This psalm dedicated “ to the Son,” well and truly envisages the “ death” of the “ Son,” Himself, Son of God (Ps 2:7,) son of David, yet at the same time it is an unquestionable evocation of His resurrection in virtue of the promise that the Unknown of the Exile made to Yahweh’s Servant (Is 53:10-11).

“... That I may make known all Your praises at the gates of the daughter of Sion, that I rejoice in Your Salvation” (Ps 9:15)

“ In Your Salvation”, literally: “ in Your Jesus.” The blessed name of “ Jesus” is written here in black and white. That being the case, “ the daughter of Sion” is Mary! And Jesus will be the cause of Her rejoicing, as She will sing it on the day of Her Magnificat: “My soul glorifies the Lord, and My spirit rejoices in God My Saviour,” literally, “ in God My Jesus.”

MAGNIFICAT ANIMA MEA DOMINUM

Thus were the “ poor of Israel” during the latter days of the Old Covenant, thus we are, “I should say, dare to say, for sixty and a hundred years, Fr. de Nantes wrote in 1986. Our grandparents forced by Leo XIII to rally the anticlerical and Protestant Masonic Republic. Our parents forced to espouse the Christian theo-democrat chimeras of Pius XI or else suffer de facto excommunication for twelve years, and long after by repute. We ourselves forced to endure the ‘regime d’abattoir [slaughterhouse regime]’ (Fr. Panici) of the supposed Liberation and already its accompanying ecclesiastical subversion and clerical suspicion, then suddenly to see the burden made worse and the yoke made intolerable by a conciliar and papal ‘Reform of the Church’ tearing us ever more daily between an absurd, degrading obedience due to our superiors, and the luminous faith, the exhilarating hope, the love given to Jesus Christ.

 “For us, we had a clear conscience, our reasons a hundred times verified, our readings of Holy Scripture and of the Fathers, and the example of all the Saints. Everything repeated to us that we were in the right. The lying speeches, the unjust and illegal sanctions which the bishops and then the Holy See took turns perpetrating to prevent us from breathing and to push us to despair – what am I saying? – to persuade us to break our religious vows and to leave the Church, were clear signs all along our path, become a way of the Cross, of an iniquitous persecution.

“Be that as it may, we had to live in the Church’s communion, in the clerical confraternity, in subjection or filial submission to our bishops and to our Holy Father the Pope. Therefore, even though we were certainly among the good defenders of the Faith, the loyal servants of the Church, and, despite our faults, the true disciples of Jesus Christ, the beloved of God, we stayed, through politeness, through discretion, through natural courtesy, in the presence of these notorious and scandalous heretics, of these arrogant apostates, of these ruling princes of the Church, of incredible harshness as a rule, like Bolshevik commissars lording it over everyone, forced to behave like deferential slaves, ignorant and stupid of course, humbly attentive to the words and thoughts of their Highnesses.

“Such were the ’poor of Israel’ during the latter days of the Old Covenant. They were objects of constant contempt on the part of the Sadducees and Pharisees. It is they who, in their troubles, composed and tirelessly murmured the many psalms of quiet grievance, of appeals to God, of ever purer and ever more intimate trust, hope and love, becoming holier and stronger as the oppression of the wicked crushed them ever more heavily. It is from this restricted circle of banished and despised people that the gentle, humble, Immaculate Virgin Mary was born. From this compost treated as the dungheap of Israel, there blossomed this rose. And from this community of the banished there arose one day the Magnificat like the song of the turtledove announcing Springtime to the world.

“On that day the shackles of a shameful slavery was broken for ever. God’s beloved knew that they were no longer required to endure the snubs of the great and the perpetual shame of their misfortune and of their poverty. The screen of all those powers, which until then had held them enslaved, no longer bothered them. Authority remained with those who were its depositaries, and no revolution, no insubordination was seen. It is just that through and beyond these rich and powerful ones, the good God, their Father in Heaven, began to appear to their eyes, annulling the constraint, manifesting His truth, His justice, His fidelity and His love. It was a foretaste of liberation; it was the harbinger of a new Covenant, where God would always be with His beloved, restoring peace to their bruised souls, even though the yoke of the rich and the powerful would not cease to oppress then.” (CRC no. 195, December 1986, p. 27-28)

On the day of the Annunciation, hope was transformed into possession, water was changed into wine, the promise was fulfilled, the Word was made Flesh. Not only does its intimate tone, the psychology of She Who sang this psalm, namely the Heart of the Virgin Mary, evoke the psychology of the poor of Israel singing the psalms of pilgrimage with humility and elation, in joy and hope also but the enthusiasm, the exaltation of Mary reminds us of the great alleluatic psalms.

“My soul glorifies the Lord, and My spirit rejoices in God My Saviour.”

Mary is simply fulfilling the oracle of the prophet Habakkuk: “ Yet I will rejoice in Yahweh and exult in God my Saviour.” (Ha 3:18)

Mary continues:

“For He has regarded His little Handmaiden”…

In His condescendence that the psalmist celebrates: “ Yahweh raises the needy from the dust, lifts the poor from the dunghill, seats them with princes, the princes of the people, gives the childless wife a home, the joyful mother of children.” (Ps 113:7-9) This was the case for Anna, Samuel’s mother (1 S 2:3-8).

“Behold, from now on will all ages call Me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for Me, and holy is His Name.”

Psalm 72 announced this of the Messiah: “ May the tribes of the earth be blessed in Him and may all the nations call Him blessed!” (Ps 72:17)

The transfer of the promised blessings from Him to Her shows that from the beginning (Gn 3:15) the Virgin Mary is but one with Her Son! For all the “ great things”(niphla ’ôt) accomplished by God in Sacred History culminate in the one miracle that He ‘worked for Her’ in Her virginal womb.

“ Holy is His Name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear Him.”

The Psalmist said that He is: “ holy and awesome.” We sing it in Sunday vespers: “ Sanctum et terribile Nomen ejus.” (Ps 111:9) The Virgin Mary drops “ awesome” and only retains the holiness, understanding that Her Son would be a Messiah of gentleness and not of terror. Holy and awesome? No! Holy and Merciful.

Mercy is omnipresent in the psalms. Psalm 103 is the most intimate expression of this mystery of grace and mercy that flows from the Heart of God like pure water that the Virgin changed into wine by giving Him flesh.

“He has shown might with His arm, dispersed the proud of heart.”

The Psalmist had announced it: “ Mighty Your arm, strong Your hand, Your right hand is ever exalted. Justice and judgement are the foundation of Your throne; love and loyalty march before You.” (Ps 89:14-15)

“He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry He has filled with good things; the rich He has sent empty away.”

This is the key to the enigma of the parables of Psalm 107 with its evangelical resonance: “ Whoever is wise will take note of these things, will ponder the merciful deeds of Yahweh ” (Ps 107:43)

Mary understood them because She had read them in the psalms.

Jesus came, conceived in Her womb: “ The blind receive their sight and the lame walk.” He calmed the storm on Judgement day. (Ps 107:23-30)

On Judgement day, who will be those blessed by the Father? Those who, like Jesus, will have turned their attention to the poor, the hungry and prisoners, in order to feed them and to exalt the lowly.

In Her Magnificat, the Virgin Mary conceived the entire programme of the Gospel, by transfiguring the announcement that She read in the Psalms:

“He has helped Israel His servant, remembering His mercy, according to His promise to our Fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

OUR LADY OF FATIMA.

“ Yahweh has sworn an oath that will never be retracted: ‘You are a priest forever, of the order of Melchizedek’.”

Melchizedek is this “ king of Salem,” “ a priest of God Most High,” who made a brief and mysterious apparition in the history of the patriarchs, after the campaign of Abraham against the four kings. (Gn 14:18-20)

This person “ brought out bread and wine,” (Gn 14:18) as a prophetic figure of the Body and Precious Blood that must be eaten and drunk in order to attain eternal life. He returned in the person of the Angel of Portugal who gave this Body and Precious Blood in communion to Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta:

“ Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.”

It was at the Cabeço, in the autumn of 1916. Less than ten years later, on December 10, 1925, the Queen of Heaven appeared to Lucy and, beside Her, borne by a luminous cloud, the Child Jesus. The Most Blessed Virgin placed Her hand on Lucy’s shoulder, and as She did so, She showed her a Heart encircled by thorns that She was holding in Her other hand.

At the same time, the Child Jesus said to her:

“ Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment, without anyone making an act of reparation to remove them. ”

Then the Most Blessed Virgin said to her:

“ Behold, My daughter, My Heart surrounded by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and their ingratitude. You at least try to console Me and say that all those who on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep Me company for fifteen minutes whilst meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, in a spirit of reparation, I promise to assist at the hour of their death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls. ”

Brother Bruno of Jesus-Mary.