Eucharistic, Marian and Trinitarian Theophany

THE media campaign launched by the Conference of French Bishops (CEF) against the Catholic Counter-Reformation (CCR) devotes four lines to the CCR’s “errors” on the mystery of the Holy Trinity:

“We will not deal here with the debate on the theology of the Trinity and the unfortunate formula presenting the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as ‘three divine beings’.”

We did a thorough search in the complete works of our Father, including the transcripts of his sermons. It so happens that he did indeed use this expression – but to reprove it: “When three people love each other, they come so close together that it becomes a single group, but it is three different people. Whereas the three divine Persons are not three distinct divine Beings, close to each other, and therefore it is not love that makes the union between the three Persons, otherwise it would be very understandable.” There would no longer be a mystery of the Holy Trinity: “one God in three Persons.” A unique divine Being.

Our Father continued in this manner:

“A small family that affection unites will never form more than an intimate union of three beings created independent from each other, whereas in the Unique God it is not a question of union but of unity: a single God and not a united God.

“The union is artificial, it has to be forged, whereas unity is a mystery. How can the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be one and the same God in the perfect simplicity of a single existence of an eternal Being, a living God, infinitely perfect and without limits, and they are three Persons? This is inexplicable.

“Saint Augustine tells us that he was walking on a beach meditating on the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a child who had dug a hole in the sand. He was taking out the water that rose in the hole and going to throw it into the sea, and the water always came back. Saint Augustine looked at the boy and said: “You will never succeed; you would have to empty all the water in the sea.” The child turned around and said to him: “And you, trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity, you will never succeed either,” and he disappeared.

Saint Augustine, however, continued his meditation. There is one God and there are three Persons. Saint Augustine explains that One comes from the Other and a Third comes from the first Two. When the Father begets His Son, it is like a spirit who finds his idea and says it in a Word. When God thinks, His Wisdom is God Himself. Yet there is the Father Who gazes at Himself, Who looks at Himself, Who admires Himself in His Wisdom. The Father begets His Son but in such a perfect movement that between the Father and the Son, there is no difference. They are absolutely of the same substance.

The Father conceived His Son, gave the image of His Substance, uttered a Word

We would not understand it if the Son had not appeared to us as a man and if this man, Jesus Christ, had not said to us: “My Father in Heaven and I are one.” This means that We are in perfect agreement and We love each Other infinitely, but unity is not at the end but at birth.

In the same way, when we imagine the Father and the Son as though on a throne, in Heaven, there is such love between Them that it is not a second ‘begetting,’ Saint Thomas says, it is a ‘procession’ of love of a new kind, it is an ecstasy of love, like two persons who love each other and who say ‘our love’ as though there were a third person between them who is their personified consubstantial love. The love of the Father and the Son springs from Their union and returns to Them to thank Them for it. The Holy Spirit returns to the one Heart of the Father and the Son. It is an unfathomable and savoury mystery.

God is one, but God is not alone. He finds His satisfaction in His Child Who is His Word, Who is Jesus Christ:

“My Beloved, My only Son, on Whom I placed My favour, hear Him.”

THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Thus, access to God is possible. This does not mean to climb to the top of Sinai, like Moses or Elijah. It means to gain access to the Heart of Jesus, to contemplate Him, to receive Him in us and, receiving Him in us, to be joined to God by that intimate bond of Jesus with God His eternal Father, and Their Spirit of creative love Who, since Pentecost, vivifies the Church, sanctifying our souls. Then we find ourselves caught up in this movement of the three Persons and we find ourselves introduced by the Holy Spirit into the Heart of Jesus, and from the Heart of Jesus we find ourselves led to the Father.

The note of the CEF against the Catholic Counter-Reformation, however, clearly shows that grace no longer passes through the hands of the successors of the Apostles: “We will not deal here with the debate on the theology of the Trinity,” because we no longer have the Catholic Faith in the age of religious freedom and masdu ... where necessity knows no law. Muslims say that the true God is Allah, and that Allah has no child. The Jews say that God, our God, Yahweh, has no child. That is why Pope Francis no longer wants to be called “Vicar of Christ.” In order to be able to seal the Covenant of the “three monotheisms” advocated by Paul VI:

“We have a hope which may appear utopian because it does not rest on any concrete basis, and may even itself represent a point of discord, but which we consider to be founded upon an argument that is solid and practical: the conflict [in the Middle East] involves three different ethnico-religious groups (?), all of which recognise a one and true God: the Hebrew people, the Islamic people and between them, and scattered throughout the entire world, the Christian people.

“These three expressions of an identical monotheism speak with the most authentic and ancient, and even the boldest and most confident, the most convinced voices. Can we not hope, therefore, that the name of the same God, instead of engendering irreconcilable opposition, may lead, rather, to mutual respect, understanding and peaceful coexistence? Should the reference to the same God, the same Father without prejudice to theological discussions (!!!),, not lead us rather one day to discover what is so evident, yet so difficult, that we are all sons of the same Father and that, therefore, we are all brothers?” (Paul VI, August 11, 1970)

MEDIATION OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

Pope Francis, however, will repent of this denial by shedding tears at the feet of the Virgin of the Immaculate Heart. This is what Saint Jacinta saw! As we await that blessed day, let us raise our eyes to Heaven, where our beloved Heavenly Father sits in glory, represented at the top of the apse of our chapel, above the altar, with His Son on the Cross. He sits on the clouds, not to judge, but to sustain His creature and absolve him, by the merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and raise him up to Him in His almighty Mercy (Photo).

This high wall is illuminated by two stained-glass windows, one celebrating the flamboyant Divine Heart of Jesus and the golden monstrance of His Eucharist, the other the barque of the Church in the storm and, in the sky, the Star of the Sea, symbol of the Virgin. Thus is represented the great theophany of Tuy, with which Sister Lucia was favoured on June 13, 1929. Yet, no painting or fresco recalls this event in the chapel where it took place. This fact attests to ecclesiastical incredulity, relentlessly trying to make people forget all that Heaven has done to spare the earth from the terrible punishment announced to Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta, after the vision of Hell, on July 13, 1917. At least, in our chapel, when we raise our eyes to the heights, we can find an evocation of what Lucia saw:

“I understood that I had been shown the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, and I received insights into this mystery that I am not permitted to reveal.”

We can get some idea of this when we see the Immaculate towards Whom drifts from Heaven the gentle and adorable gaze of our Heavenly Father, full of intimate tenderness for Her, as a sovereign homage to Her perfect holiness and as a mission entrusted to Her as Mediatrix for our praying assembly, for the Church and for all humanity in peril. At the same moment and movement, the Sacred Dove of the Divine Paraclete seems to be taking flight from the bosom of the Father to glide towards Her.

At Tuy, Our Lady spoke and finished revealing to Her confidant the great plan of grace and mercy of our Heavenly Father:

“The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.”

Yet, this was also an urgent message, which she was ‘not allowed to reveal.’ Why not?

“Why is an icy silence observed regarding this marvellous grace given to the earth, of the same order and having the same meaning as the Transfiguration of Our Lord at Tabor? This Trinitarian exhortation to faith, coming from Heaven, is given to the whole Church so that she may assume the great trials of the end times.”

This Letter to the Phalange of August 13, 1995, the anniversary of the ‘missed’ meeting of August 13, 1917, explains the reasons for this silence: “Because the world and the Roman Church, in ‘connivance’ and close collaboration, substitute Medjugorje for Fatima, the work of the Devil for that of God Himself, because the former goes in the direction of liberalism and democracy, while the latter, which is the only true one, has a political message that is abhorred. It is the Catholic and royal politics of God, which is faithful to our families, to our communities. The same holds true for all times, as it did in the Gospel. The politics of Fatima are unbearable to the Sanhedrin. Woe betide you! The ruin of Jerusalem in those days heralds your ruin.”

The great promise of Tuy in 1929, was “to put an end to the persecution in Russia,” to “save Russia” in view of world peace. It is in order to bring this to fulfilment that God wished and still wishes “to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

That is why, following our Father, “I want to place from now on the Blessed Virgin Mary absolutely above all my heart’s affections, above all my convictions and thoughts, all my exterior works and all my desires.

“Let no one raise objections and state that the love of God Himself should be given the highest priority in everything and should always take the centre stage. It is precisely in the rejection of this objection that lies the new, surprising, and overwhelming character of this devotion, a devotion upon which I shall no longer frown and which I wish to make my own, because that is what our gentle Lord and Master wishes and expects from our generation that He might save it!

“This is what motivates our resolution: to work to exhaustion, to be loved by the good, to be hated by the enemies of Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, and to be ready for whatever crosses, out of love for the Immaculate. To Her is due the love of all, their adoring admiration, their trust, and their lengthy prayers. It is for Her to command the souls devoted and consecrated to Her. It is for Her to be the only visible leader of our Phalanges. It is for Her to perform the miraculous conquest of souls and to preserve them. It is for Her, Who made the sun dance on the October 13, 1917 so that all might believe, to perform the miracle which cannot be gained by our own vain exertions: that of crushing Hell and its armies of demons, whilst attracting sincere hearts, converting them, and attaching them irrevocably to Her divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Brother Bruno of Jésus-Marie.