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Theological Clarifications of Father Jobert OSB.
This
is a selection of some of the papers Father Jobert
1. Personal witness of Father Philippe Jobert, OSB. Monk and
theologian of
St. Peters
Abbey,
2. Terminology
3. How to understand the small cross of the Crucified Innocence
4. The Mystery of the Child Jesus
5. Covenant
6. The Novitiate of the Holy Family for our time
7. The New Order of the human family
8.
Origin of the
roles of Mary and Joseph in the
9. Our Lady of the Hidden and Mystical Wounds
10. Crucified innocence and Divine Innocence –
11. Holy Innocents in our times
12. Theological arguments for the martyrdom of children killed before birth
13. The
Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass and the claiming of
14. Virgin Souls
15. Kings, Priests, Prophets - aborted children's participation in Christ's threefold office
16. Limbo, no
17. Brief explanations of key theological themes in relation to the children
18. The Philosophy of Divine
Love
1. Personal witness of Father Philippe
Jobert, OSB. Monk and theologian of St. Peters Abbey, Solesmes,
28th
June 2000.
In Nazareth House, between the 16th
and the 28th of June a theological investigation into the doctrine
of Divine Innocence brought important progress in understanding the truths
which are contained in the terminology of the Messages. The conclusions of this investigation will be
useful in order to write a document to present Divine Innocence to the
authorities of the Church and to the theologians. We need to show to them through theology how
the doctrine of the Messages is already contained implicitly in divine
Revelation and in the teaching of the Church.
A theological explanation of Divine Innocence will make explicit the
immediate link between divine Revelation given to the Church and the doctrine
of the Messages.
For instance, a list of the themes,
which are treated in the Messages, arranged in an alphabetical order, led to a
systematic ordering of these themes according to theological regulations. The result was that the Novitiate of the Holy
Family appeared as the organic and complete Plan of Salvation, with all the
relations between the Holy Trinity [the common work of the three divine
Persons], through the Mystery of the Incarnation in the Holy Family and
mankind. The Novitiate is a new expression of this eternal Plan, which is to be
fulfilled in our times; at the same time, it is clearly expressed in proper
words, and personified in the persons of the Holy Family, so that it can be
easily understood, and put into practice by everybody.
Another result was that the Claiming of
aborted children found its important place in this plan of salvation. The most
recent messages manifest the notion of the “Baptism of Love”, which proves to
be a key to the full doctrine of baptism which, from the Baptism of Christ in
the
These two examples concerning the
most important themes of Divine Innocence are the main discoveries of our work,
among many other clarifications.
Fr.
Philippe Jobert
Also, with
regard to the overall content of this inspiration and the instrument God has
chosen to communicate this message to the Church and to the world, Father
Philippe has stated:
“I
am not issuing a statement about the authenticity of her messages, but about
what is contained within them, from a theological point of view. However, I can say that they not only contain
nothing contrary, nor alien to the teaching of the Church, but what they say is
a far deeper theology than everything I know, either in classical theology, or
in modern researches…There are no books from which she (Patricia de Menezes)
could have taken ideas and formulas.
There are no theologians, in the present time, who could have inspired her
writings. My conclusion is that there is
no natural explanation of so deep and so strong a doctrine, which may be called
without exaggeration, the “Logic of Love”.
Fr. Philippe Jobert
Just as Holy Scripture is
the source of theology, the messages from the inspiration are, in their
wording, the source of their own theological explanation. So it is necessary to explain each expression
proper to the message, and, inversely to go back to the actual terminology of
the messages to grasp all that is contained within them.
1) Divine
Innocence:
This is a divine attribute, which means
the divine Perfection as opposed to any evil, any sin; the divine Will is
perfect as being identical to infinite Good, and ordering everything to this
infinite Good. God enjoys all that is
good, and hates all that is bad and opposed to His Goodness. All that is good shares in His Goodness, and
in the same measure, in His Divine Innocence.
2) Christ’s
Crucified Innocence:
The Son of God Incarnate communicates
His Divine Innocence to His human nature.
When, as a man, He is crucified by the forces of evil, His Innocence is
crucified: that means that these forces of evil which crucify Him, are
absolutely opposed to His Innocence.
Because His Innocence is infinite Love, this Love is Mercy for the
sinners’ misery, and Justice against their sins in His Heart.
3) The crucified
innocence of the children (killed before birth) and of people:
All those who share in Divine Innocence
are innocent, in as much as they seek good and refuse sin. The children are innocent in that they have
no actual sin, because they do not enjoy the use of their freewill. When innocent people are victims of the
forces of evil, their innocence is crucified.
4) Divine
Innocence triumphant in human crucified innocence:
As members of Christ, who lives in them
through faith and grace, it is Christ who is crucified in their crucified
innocence. Because Christ’s Crucified
Innocence is Triumphant, having defeated the forces of evil, the devil, sin,
and death by His Passion and His Resurrection, His Divine Innocence Crucified
is triumphant in our crucified innocence in as much as we share in His Love,
Mercy, and Justice.
5) The Novitiate
of the Holy Family:
The primitive order of the family, created
by God in our first parents and destroyed by their sin, is restored in the Holy
Family by the Son of God Incarnate,
Jesus, Mary His Mother and Joseph, Mary’s spouse. All mankind is
contained in Jesus who redeems it from sin and death through His Cross, who
sanctifies it through grace, and will raise it at the end of time. Mary personifies the primitive role of Eve as
a female person, restored in herself, and Joseph personifies the primitive role
of Adam as a male person, restored in himself.
Both of them are God’s instruments in their genders and roles, motherly
and fatherly, to help families and single men and women to live according to
the original order of things: in union in their complimentary roles of man and
woman, for the birth and education of their children to the good.
Furthermore, they are associated with
Christ in His powers: prophetic, priestly, kingly, to attract people, to bring
people to Christ, and to help them live according to the Gospel, in faith,
hope, and charity, and in all the virtues. The action of Mary and Joseph as
instruments is real, dependant upon Christ’s sanctifying action, as
intercessors to obtain grace and all necessary assistance from Him on a human
level. Their action is mainly ordered to
the personification of their roles, the fatherly role and fatherhood, the
motherly role and motherhood, not only in families, but in every vocation: even
priests and religious are under their influence in this way.
The foundation of this influence must
be considered in a comparison with human society. The family is the source of civil
society. The Holy Family is the source
of the Church, and also her perfection: there is no distinction between the
Church and the Holy Family. What the
Holy Family is invisibly in heaven, the Church is visibly on earth. Every member of the Church is a member of the
Holy Family.
Thus, the Novitiate of the Holy Family
is a modern expression of the eternal plan of Salvation. Because our life on earth is a novitiate of
the eternal life, the Novitiate of the Holy Family is a training for eternal
life under the influence of the Holy Family: it is an ordered Christian life,
according to the Gospel, the teaching of the Church: the study of the faith,
liturgical prayer, Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, the Sacraments, the Rosary,
etc. and in particular divine Wisdom and
Truth. It is a fully Christ-centred life
under the care of Our Lady and
The Novitiate does not add anything to
the normal Christian life and to membership in the Church but tends to the
perfection of this Christian life to which all the faithful are called. Because the Holy Family perfectly shares in
the Trinitarian life, through their commitment to the Holy Family, through
their perfect fulfilment of the roles of Mary and Joseph as women and men, the
faithful pursue the best way of sharing more and more fully in the Trinitarian
life and of reaching the perfection of charity in the Novitiate.
In this way, people in every state of
life, married, single, priests, religious etc., may, through the Novitiate,
root their life more deeply in the Church, when they commit themselves, without
any change in their kind of existence, to the Holy Family which is the heavenly
summit of the Church. In doing so, they
become one Holy Family.
6)
“Rabbi, where do you live?” “Come and
see.” (Jn 1:38,39). Even in our age,
Christ lives in the Holy Family. He
lives in the Blessed Sacrament on earth and Our Lady and
7) Mother of the Hidden and Mystical
Wounds:
According
to Simeon’s prophecy, the Heart of Our Lady was pierced by a sword of pain,
when her Son died on the Cross (Lk 2:35).
Her Heart contained all mankind, because it was overshadowed by the Holy
Spirit, who as Creator, contains all men as objects of God’s Love. Thus her wounded Heart contains all human
suffering and wounds in a mystical way (‘mystic’ is human life as transformed
by the Holy Spirit).
Just
as the wound of Our Lady’s Heart is hidden, so all these mystical wounds are
hidden: she offers them to her Son to be healed by His Mercy. Our Lord’s wounds in His Heart and body are
the ransom of our sins, which in this way are the cause of Our Lady’s hidden
wound. Her wound is a sharing in
Christ’s wounds, as well as all human wounds which are mystically contained in
hers. Through this sharing, she is
united to Christ’s Passion, and with her the whole Church, first as redeemed,
then as instrument of the fulfilment of Redemption in the whole of mankind.
8) Eucharistic
Heart of Jesus:
In the Blessed Sacrament, in Christ’s
sacramental Body, Christ’s Heart is really present, and His Divine Love, as
well as His human mercy, is present through concomitance, in His Heart. In heaven, Our Lady is, with her glorious body,
associated with her risen Son, she is also united to His sacramental Presence
through the union of her Heart with Christ’s Eucharistic Heart. This union is sealed by the Holy Spirit who
fills their Hearts. So her Heart is also
Eucharistic.
This union makes the heart of
9) The
Eucharistic University:
Christ is a living and acting divine
Person in the Blessed Sacrament. To the
people who submit themselves to His action, He gives light for their
intelligence; so that, when they study before the Blessed Sacrament, whatever
the subject of their study, they receive knowledge at a higher level because
they share in Christ’s Wisdom in the submission of their intelligence to His
Love.
10) Philosophy of
Divine Love:
All
philosophies are the result of human research into various things to discover
their ultimate causes. When philosophers
submit their intelligence to reality, God, acting through the being of things,
gives them a share in His truth; but when they substitute their own ideas for
the objective knowledge which is given to them by God through these particular
things, their intelligence becomes independent and subjective, and they wander
into the domain of error. An error
cannot cope with reality, because it does not come from an experience of
reality. Objective truth is not
complete, when the subjective experience of one’s self is not integrated into
it. Objective knowledge of subjectivity
through experience is the refutation of subjectivism which is the cause of all
errors through its independence from experience. Even when a philosophy is true, it remains
incomplete, because it does not discover the ultimate cause of being: it is a
limited sharing in God’s Wisdom.
The Philosophy of Divine Love is the
perfect philosophy. When we speak of
God’s philosophy, the word does not mean the research of Truth, but the
identity of Love and Truth in God. Out
of His Love, God gave a gratuitous participation in His Wisdom through faith,
and in His Truth through Revelation: in this way the human mind is elevated on
both sides: subjective and objective.
Using its own philosophy, the human mind tries to discover more and more
the divine Truth which is contained in Revelation; in this theological work the
necessary condition to better perceive this content is a submission of reason
to faith: this act of obedience is love, and a participation in Divine Love.
A deeper participation in Divine Love,
under the motion of the Holy Spirit, leads to a deeper sharing in Divine
Wisdom. Human intelligence discovers new meanings within Divine Revelation,
through a perception of the Divine Love Himself by mystical experience. In such a way, the Holy Spirit communicates
the Philosophy of Divine Love itself, which is complete and perfect truth. However, this communication is given in the
obscurity of faith, and remains always limited by the limits of human
intelligence, as well as by the measure of the gift of God. Coming from an experience of God, this
philosophy is superior to all philosophies which come only from an experience
of things.
11)
Song of Divine Love:
Praise is an act of intelligence,
which, under an impulse of love, expresses its admiration. When the object of the knowledge transcends
the capacity of its comprehension, from its own knowledge it tries to express
this transcendence. This link between
knowledge and praise is similar to the link between the shared philosophy of
Divine Love and the Song of Love. This
Song is a pure praise which expresses, through a symbolic language, that which
transcends the creature’s capacity in its experience of Divine Love. This praise of all divine perfections, all divine
works, as experienced by the creature, is admiration, thanksgiving, joy,
because God alone is its object.
Reparation concerns human sins, even though it is a result of love. All that God has done for mankind, salvation,
sanctification, glorification, is a cause of praise and is the source of the
Song of Love.
12)
Enlightenment:
The submission of all knowledge, drawn
from an experience of things, to Christ’s light in the Eucharistic University,
leads to a new age of enlightenment, the ultimate cause of which is Divine
Love.
3. How to understand the small cross of the
Crucified Innocence.
This cross is symbolic,
and it must not be looked at as an historical representation of Christ
Crucified. Christian doctrine explains
the connection between both sides of the small cross. The little cross is the
symbol of two successive states of mankind; on the one side mankind as slave of
sin and death and on the other side mankind which Christ redeems and
raises. The crucified child on the first
side is a symbol of human crucified innocence.
We must not forget that mankind was created by God in the state of
original innocence; the perfect order of humanity as an image of God, through
grace. Original sin has crucified this
original innocence, and all sins, which follow original sin, cause innumerable
disorders and sufferings in mankind throughout the ages. Original innocence is crucified in mankind
all over the world by our sins and by the sins of others in our times.
Christ as Creator
contains, pre-existent in Himself, all men of all times, who subsist with Him
in His individual human nature. In such
a way, Christ takes upon Himself all their pains, which are the punishment of
their sins. Through His obedience unto
the Cross and death, in Him they expiate their sins, and through His
Resurrection, their original innocence is restored in a participation of
eternal life, which is grace (Rom 5:23).
The triumphant child on the second side of the cross is the symbol of
this restoration.
Thus Christ’s Crucified
Innocence is Triumphant in their crucified innocence. Now, as St. Paul says: “It makes me happy to
be suffering for you now and in my own body, to make up all the hardships that
still have to be undergone by Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church” (Col
1:24). Each Christian must freely share
in Christ’s Redemption through faith, baptism, and all the sacraments; and
being a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, he must apply in his life, under
the Holy Spirit’s impulse, through abnegation, obedience and trials of all
kinds, the restoration of his personal original innocence. More precisely, it is Christ who operates in
him through grace this transformation into the likeness of His Divine Crucified
Innocence, since the work has already been fulfilled by Him on the Cross. What was virtually completed by Christ on the
Cross, is actually completed by every Christian who takes up his own cross
until the end of time. Through
conversion from sin to faith, hope, and charity, Christ takes us into His Divine
Crucified Innocence and He is triumphant in our crucified innocence. Thus the passage from one side of the small
cross, to the other side is explained on scriptural and theological grounds.
Childhood is the symbol
of innocence. Because we really are
children of God, and children before God, because to be admitted into the
kingdom of heaven, we must become like children in the Child Jesus. The little cross represents Christ’s Triumph
as His Childhood’s triumph, and our crucified innocence in the Divine Innocence
Crucified, is represented as Triumphant
in the Child Jesus.
So the small cross
symbolises a complete synthesis of the Way of Divine Innocence.
4. The
Mystery of the Child Jesus.
At
the time of the birth of Jesus (Lk 2:10), the angels announced to the Shepherds
a great joy: a Saviour was born to them.
Like all men, the Shepherds were sinners with an unhappy conscience,
yearning for salvation. They went and found
a child laid in a manger. A child’s
property is innocence: that is the reason why sinners are attracted by
childhood. They love in a child this
innocence which they have lost, and which they secretly hope to recover. The Child Jesus is a Saviour, because He is
not only innocent, but Divine Innocence Incarnate, coming to this world to save
sinners from their sins, as it was said to St. Joseph (Mt 1:21).
Divine
Innocence is God’s Goodness itself, considered as opposed to every evil. It adds to the notion of perfect Goodness a
negation excluding any evil. As God is
absolute Goodness, making only good, Innocence implies a comparison with
creation, from only which every evil comes.
Because the creature is made from nothing, it keeps an intrinsic
potentiality to go back to nothing, to lose its given being, and to lose in
acting, the perfect being to which it is ordained: this loss is evil corrupting
actuality and activity. For a man, it is
death and sin, which is the fate of mankind from the original sin committed by
our first parents. Divine Innocence,
being opposed to evil in creation, is the principle of Divine Mercy, which
wants to liberate mankind from its subjection to death and sin.
The
Divine Act of Being is Divine Innocence and also Divine Love. Mercy is an extension of Love, which properly
wants Good, consequently wanting to suppress misery, because misery is a
deprivation of good in the creature.
Perfect mercy consists in taking upon oneself another’s misery, to
liberate him from his misery. Divine Mercy in Incarnation consists for Christ
to take upon Himself the misery of the death of mankind; furthermore He takes
upon Himself the spiritual misery of mankind, which is deprivation of beatific
vision; when He becomes a man, He deprives Himself from His divine glory, which
consists in being recognised as the Son of God.
The Incarnation is for Him an infinite humiliation. St. Paul writes: “Though He was in a divine
state, He did not vindicate His equality with God, but He annihilated Himself,
assuming the state of a slave, becoming like men and recognised as a man through
everything which was seen of Him; He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto
death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7).
Being
the Creator, Christ contains pre-existing in Him all creatures, and among them,
all men. As He subsists in an individual
human nature, all men subsist also in this human nature. When Christ acts, suffers, dies and rises in
His human nature, all men in Him act, suffer, die and rise. In Christ, they undergo the pain of their
sins, death for their disobedience, humiliation for their pride willing to be
equal to God.
Just
as Divine Innocence is the principle of Love as Mercy, it is the principle of
Love as Justice. According to this Love
as Justice, Christ justifies sinners in Himself and destroys their sins through
His act of obedience and His act of humility.
So His Love as Justice is identified with His Love as Mercy, because it
frees sinners from their misery of guilt.
Likewise his Mercy is Justice, when He pays for them the debt of death
and humiliation.
Christ
is a Divine Person subsisting in an individual human nature. Being God who is His Act of Being, Christ
exercises His Divine Act of Being in His human nature. All states of His human life, all acts and
sufferings, are eternalised by His Divine Act of Being, even though they have
historically passed. So, although Christ
is an adult and no more a child according to His human history, He is actually
the Child Jesus according to His Divine Act of Being. Though Christ’s sacrifice as offered on the
Cross was ended by His death according to His human history, it remains actual
according to His eternal Act of Being.
It is “perpetuated along centuries, until Christ returns” in the
Eucharist, as the Second Vatican Council teaches (Const, Sacro. Sanctum
Concilium n.47).
The
Divine Act of Being, as “the power of the Most High, overshadowed the Virgin
Mary” (Lk 1:35), so that she conceived Christ and became the Mother of
God. According to the divine command
given to Joseph by the Angel, the Divine Act of Being made him Mary’s spouse
for ever, through his consent to receive her as his wife (Mt 1:20). Thus Christ’s Divine Act of Being constitutes
the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, Joseph; the Holy Family is the source of the
Church, invisibly living in the Church, and acting in her members for their
salvation.
By
His Divine Act of Being Christ builds His Church on Peter as her
foundation. He teaches His Gospel, gives
His grace, and leads the people of God through her; through her visible
hierarchy and her visible sacraments, communicating the remission of sins and
eternal life, the fruit of His Passion and Resurrection.
Meanwhile,
invisibly, the Child Jesus attracts all men, through Mary and Joseph as His
instruments, to share in His Divine Innocence, which is His uncreated
grace. The eternal Child Jesus,
eternally crucified, is Divine Innocence Crucified. If people commit themselves to His Divine
Innocence Crucified, through the mediation of Mary and Joseph, in the Novitiate
of the Holy Family, He unites them to Himself, overshadows them with His Divine
Innocence, and gives them a sharing in His Divine Innocence Crucified and
Triumphant.
Nobody is more like the
Child Jesus’ Crucified Innocence than the children who are killed before birth
through abortion and embryo experiments.
Because of their likeness to His Divine Innocence Crucified and because
Divine Innocence is the principle of Divine Mercy and Divine Justice, Christ
Crucified gratuitously unites these Innocents with His own eternal Sacrifice. He involves them in His offering to the
Father, as He does in the Holy Eucharist, and justifies them at the moment of
their violent death, through the merciful gift of His sanctifying grace, making
them martyrs in Himself. In them, like
in the Mass, He actualises His own martyrdom. His Divine Innocence Crucified is triumphant
in their martyrdom.
Such is the mystery of
Divine Innocence, Incarnate in the Child Jesus, and Crucified in Christ’s
Passion, as well as in the suffering members of His Mystical Body, even in the
smallest ones, the children killed before birth, the little brothers and
sisters of the Child Jesus.
‘This cup is
the new Covenant in my blood, poured out for you’ [Lk.22: 20]
A covenant is an exchange of
loves. The New Covenant is situated in
Christ Himself. In Him God’s Love is
given to human nature: as a man Christ receives the Divine Being; and when He
gives his life in sacrifice on the Cross, He gives His human love to the
Father. Thus the original Covenant
between God and mankind, broken by the original sin of our first parents, is
restored in Christ’s blood, because all men of all times are included in
Christ, for they pre-exist in Him as their Creator, and subsist with Him in His
human nature.
Even though in the original
Covenant, mankind refused love to God, God’s Love is faithful to His Covenant
and continues to keep mankind within Himself, who created and who maintains in
being the whole universe. The Old
Covenant is an act of God’s Love, choosing a people from mankind to start again
with Him in an exchange of love. The
love that is required from the Jewish people is a human love because mankind is
deprived of the original justice, which is grace. The gifts which are promised by God’s Love
in the Old Covenant are on a human level, to which mankind is reduced by
original sin. However, within the
promise of a descendance was included the birth of Christ in whom the original
exchange of love, where God offered man a share in His Divine Life, would be
restored.
Mary is at the same time the summit
and the last fruit of the Old Covenant.
In her womb Christ was conceived by the operation of the Holy
Spirit. The New Covenant, which is the
union of the divine and human natures in the Person of the Son of God, starts
in her and from her. Since the Holy
Spirit as the Creator, contains pre-existing in Himself, all men as objects of
the Divine Love, and because the Holy Spirit is present in Mary’s heart and
moves it, she gave for all mankind’s sake through her ‘Fiat’, the consent of love
which makes her the Mother of the Savior.
Thus Mary is the link between the Old and the New Covenants, and the
human origin of the New Covenant. This
New Covenant begins in Mary’s womb and is achieved completely on the Cross, by
the supreme act of love for God and for all men through which Christ gave His
life for them.
This New Covenant in Christ’s Blood
is continued until the end of the world by the Holy Eucharist which perpetuates
and actualizes it everyday. Since His
visible presence on earth ended with his Ascension, Christ now gives His
sacramental Body and Blood to the Church as a source of divine life. In the Eucharistic communion, the New
Covenant is fulfilled in each of the faithful who is united with Christ by
it.
This personal union is part of a
collective union with Christ who created the Church by the gift of the Holy
Spirit to His Apostles, gathered with Mary on the day of Pentecost. The Church is a new People of God, united to
Him by the New Covenant through the Holy Spirit who gives birth in baptism to
adoptive sons of God. The Holy Spirit
realises in each baptized person the New Covenant achieved by Christ on the
Cross for all men pre-existing in Himself.
The Church becomes the Mother of the sons of God on earth, continuing
the motherly mission of Mary who engendered them pre-existing in Christ.
The source and perfection of the
Church is in the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The original Covenant of God with the first
couple instituted the perfect order of things on a human level. This first couple lived, united by Divine
Love and shared through grace, the complimentary roles of man and woman. This original order is restored and elevated
in the Holy Family, who shares in Christ the life of the Holy Trinity: this
sharing achieves the new Covenant between God and mankind at its highest
level. It is a transformation of the
whole human society in Christ. This
transformation in Christ of the whole human society is made on two levels,
according to two levels of life: human life in the family and civil society,
supernatural life in the Church. On
both levels the Holy Family is the source and model of Christian life, because
the New Covenant through the Holy Family reaches all human persons as members
of the Church, and as members of the human family and civil society. The Holy Trinity lives in the Holy
Family. Jesus lives in those who agree
to receive this Trinitarian grace through the Holy Family. Thus the New Covenant reaches human families
through the Holy Family, giving to all men the role of Joseph, to all women the
role of Mary, and to all their members the life of Jesus, Son of God and Son of
man, source of unity.
The Novitiate of the Holy Family is
the Christian life at all levels, lived according to the Gospel, in the
dependence of the Holy Family. It is a
training of progress in virtue to reach the perfection of the New Covenant,
which is the reign of Divine Love in the Church, in the family, in civil society.
It sanctifies all roles, from the hierarchy of the Church to fatherhood and
motherhood in families, in Christ’s Unity.
Since Our Lord said that those who
are last on earth would be the first in heaven, we may consider the children
killed by abortion to have their place at the highest level of participation in
the New Covenant. They are perfectly
conformed to Christ’s Crucified Innocence by their crucified innocence; being
the most helpless; the most despised; the most forgotten; the least among all
men. God’s Mercy is everything in them
and reigns perfectly: in their martyrdom they reach the summit of the Novitiate
of the Holy Family and they are the preferred children of Mary and Joseph since
they are completely identified with Jesus.
Note: God is the Prime Lover in the
Covenant, the first effect of the Covenant is prevenient grace: In our first parents
In the Immaculate Conception.
In the martyrdom of unborn children.
The
theory of limbo forgets and neglects the Covenant. Through abortion the devil tries to undermine
the Covenant.
6. The Novitiate of the Holy Family for our
time.
The Pope, John Paul II, looking at
our times, spoke about the role of the Church in relation to
globalisation. This phenomenon is
generally considered firstly from an economic, and secondly from a political
point of view; in such a way however that the dignity of the human person is
forgotten and will eventually be destroyed, although it is of the highest
value. The Church is obliged to
vigorously defend the original order which God established when He created the
human person; that is to say its supreme dignity of being made in the image of
the Holy Trinity.
The commentary given by Cardinal
Ratzinger about the secret of
The human person has its origin in
the family. The original order of the
family, wounded by original sin, was restored in its perfection in the Holy
Family as in an individual family.
Starting from the individual Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and
Christ came in this world to fulfill
His Father’s Will, which is the original order of the family: that is the
reason why He was obedient to His human parents. He was conceived, born, educated, at
This development is called the
Novitiate of the Holy Family, because it is a progressive learning of the
divine order for men, women and priests, which is personified in Jesus, Mary
and
7. The New Order of the human family.
The mystery of the
Incarnation is first a mystery of humility.
The Holy Trinity used its divine power, which had made the whole
universe out of nothing, to reduce the Son of God to the lowest state of
mankind, childhood. The Divine Act of
Being makes Him at the same time Infinite God and a powerless Child.
For this purpose of
humility to be fulfilled, the Son of God chose a virgin from the people of
In the same way, the Son
of God chose a man from the kingly stem of
Thus the Holy Family is
formed by the Divine Act of Being which makes Jesus a Divine Person Incarnate,
which makes Mary His Mother, which makes Joseph His Guardian. Such is the divine order established forever
by the eternal Act of Being whose name is: ‘I Am’.
Because Jesus is, as God,
the Creator of mankind, He contains within Himself, eternally pre-existing in
Him, all men of all times. As
pre-existing in Him, they subsist with Him in His individual human nature. They are born in Him from the Virgin Mary,
who becomes their Mother in Christ. For
the same reason, they are entrusted to the care of Joseph, in Christ.
Because Christ is, as
God, His Divine Act of Being, which He exercises in both His natures, all
states of His life, all acts humanly done during His historical passage on
earth, are eternalised by His Divine Act of Being. So His Childhood is eternalised, even though
historically Jesus is no more a child.
Because the motherly
mission of Mary, and the fatherly mission of Joseph rely upon the Divine Act of
Being operating through them as its instruments, they are united with the
mission of Jesus as the Saviour. A
unique operation of salvation is operated by Christ, the One Saviour, with the
co-operation of Mary and Joseph. The
permanent order of salvation is the permanent mission of the Holy Family. No salvation is realised, outside this order. The whole of mankind is engendered by Mary
and set under the care of Joseph forever, as contained in the eternal Child
Jesus. All humanity are, in Christ,
members of the Holy Family.
In such a way, all humans
suffer in Christ’s Passion, die in Him on the Cross, are raised in Him, and
introduced with Him in glory. After His
Ascension, when all mankind pre-exists in Him in glory, Christ sends His Holy
Spirit to the Church. This Divine Act of
Being henceforth is present in Peter and in the Apostles, whom He previously
chose as instruments of His prophetic, priestly and kingly power. They will continue Christ’s mission of
Salvation among men of all times and everywhere.
They will actualise in
each person what has been achieved by Christ for this person pre-existing in
Him through predication, the sacraments and the government of the Church. The same Divine Act of Being is operating
through these persons as its visible instruments of salvation, and through the
invisible Holy Family.
Just as families are the
source of society, and live in society, the Holy Family is the source of the
Church, and lives in the Church really, though invisibly. The Church starts in the Child Jesus, since
all men pre-exist in Him. Mary and
Joseph are the first actual members of the Church as united with Christ by
their divine
The power of Mary and
Joseph in the Church is complementary to the sanctifying power of the
hierarchy, because it comes from the same Divine Act of Being of Christ. It disposes from inside, through the personal
holiness of the motherly and fatherly roles of Mary and Joseph, and through the
daily life of every human person, to be transformed by Christ’s grace into a
living member of His Mystical Body.
Mary and Joseph take care
of the Mystical Body of Christ as a continuation of their care of the body of
the Child Jesus, because the Church is the continuation of the Holy
Family. What the Holy Family does
invisibly, the Church does visibly: one life, and one principle of this life,
the Divine Act of Being of Christ, operating differently in each one according
to his proper mission. This is the real
and permanent New Order of the human family forever.
The Holy Family is not an
optional devotion. The Child Jesus is
not a reality of the past. The Holy
Family has not finished its mission on earth.
This mission constitutes the inner part of the public mission of the
Church until the end of time. It is
necessary for everybody to become conscious of this presence of the Holy Family
in the Church, to become a member of the Holy Family, because the Holy Family
really transforms every one into the image of the Son of God. Every man is a child compared to God. Nobody
can be saved if he does not become like a child (Mt 15:3). That is the reason
why the Holy Family transforms us into the living Child Jesus. We do not live in independence but the Child
Jesus lives in us, teaches us, leads us from inside, when Mary and Joseph take
care of His life in us. The Child Jesus
is the beginning and He is the end (cf. Rev 1:8).
The consequence of this
divine order, established in the Holy Family, and living in it, is that
everybody must introduce himself into this divine order. The Novitiate of the Holy Family is the way
of this introduction, because it restores the perfect natural order of the
family through the respective roles of men and women according to the roles of
Mary and Joseph between each other, and towards the Child Jesus. As Jesus makes, through His own grace, every
willing person a child of God, by the power of His Divine Act of Being
operating through His own human nature, Mary and Joseph are also active to
bring the same person to Christ, disposing them to receive grace from Him, as
instruments of His Divine Act of Being in a different way. As Mary and Joseph inseparably co-operate to
Christ’s action giving sanctifying grace and as the Divine Act of Being is the
unique principle and end of their associated different operations, everybody
ought to commit himself to the Holy Family, to become an actual member of the
Holy Family; since he was already a member of the Holy Family, as pre-existing
in Christ, engendered by Mary in Christ, and entrusted to Joseph in Christ. Our life in the Church is an actualisation of
what has been already achieved for all of us in the Holy Family, and what is
presently realised in us by the living Holy Family, and which requires our
commitment to it in every state of life, every vocation, springing from the
knowledge and consciousness of the divine order incarnated by God in the Holy
Family.
Our first parents,
originally were ordered to transmit under the action of prevenient grace, a
justified human nature, preserved from natural defects. The soul immediately submitted to grace, and
the body perfectly submitted to the soul, and through it, to the influence of
grace: consequently their offspring would have been conceived in prevenient
grace, and also immortal and immune from covetousness.
As a result of original
sin, they transmit a corruptible human nature, deprived of sanctifying grace,
of immortality and mastery over passions.
Through Mary and Joseph, Jesus remedies to the natural defects in the inferior
parts of the person, whereas He remedies to the deprivation of grace in the
superior part by the communication of His personal grace to the spiritual soul.
Mary and Joseph, under
the motion of Christ’s Divine Act of Being of which they are instruments,
operate in human persons to suppress the obstacles to their reception of grace,
resulting from original sin, i.e. death and covetousness. Christ, operating by His Divine Act of Being
through Mary and Joseph, transmits to these human persons the human likeness of
Mary as the Lord’s Maid (Lk 1:38) and of Joseph as the just man (Mt 1:19),
which submits them to His gift of grace.
Likewise, He perpetuates in these persons the respective roles of Mary
and Joseph between each other and towards the Child Jesus; these roles make
them instruments of Divine Love. Such is
the subordinate and auxiliary mediation of Mary and Joseph: to dispose subjects
to the reception of Christ’s grace and to its action.
Through this system of mediation, Jesus remedies, not only to human covetousness, but also to death as an obstacle to the reception of Christ’s grace. Children who die in the womb of their mothers are necessarily deprived of baptism and seemingly salvation. But under the motion of Christ’s Divine Act of Being, Mary and Joseph take care of dying children and submit them to the justifying power of Christ so that they can be saved.
8. Origin of the roles of Mary and Joseph in
the Novitiate of the Holy Family.
When God created mankind,
He was present in the first two persons, through prevenient sanctifying
grace. He was present in their souls,
and through their souls, in their body: the sanctifying prevenient grace
penetrated the whole human nature, from the spiritual soul to the body: so they
shared in the divine life. God was
present in them, not only as a principle of human life, but even as a principle
of a participation in the divine life.
God was present in their generative power, not only for the procreation
of human persons, but also to make their children His children, through the
gift of a seed of eternal life, which is grace.
After
original sin, mankind was separated from God and deprived of grace. God, whose Love is permanent, and who wants
to give eternal life to mankind, although mankind refused it, sent His Son to
become a man, and to save mankind from death and sin.
The
Son of God became a man like all men, being conceived and born of a woman,
Mary. The principle of His Conception is
the Holy Spirit. In the Incarnation, God
is again present in a human person, Mary, not only through grace, but in
Himself. In her Immaculate Conception
Mary was previously prepared to receive this new presence of the Son of God in
herself, by prevenient grace.
This
grace had the same effects as original grace had in our first parents: it
preserved her from original sin, from concupiscence especially. Her plenitude of grace penetrates and moves
her whole activity under the divine guidance.
The Son of God is present in her generative power to become, as a man,
principle of grace for all mankind. Her motherhood
is completely overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.
Her role as a mother is an effect of grace, which orders her perfectly
to Christ through charity.
The
role of Mary and the role of Joseph are effects of grace in the ordinary
activity of a woman and a man as subjects of this gratuitous gift, which is a
participation in the life of the Holy Trinity.
These
roles are effects of grace in the Church for persons who submit themselves
through the Sacraments to Christ’s grace, relying upon Mary’s and Joseph’s
intercession, especially in their motherhood and fatherhood. The result is that the roles of Mary and
Joseph are personified in such persons as subjects of Christ’s grace. These persons are within the communion of the
Holy Family and are united with the Holy Trinity, since they are Christ’s
members. Thus, the origin of the roles
of Mary and Joseph in the Novitiate of the Holy Family is Divine Love
transforming motherhood and the motherly role, and fatherhood and the fatherly
role, into Himself.
9. Our Lady of the Hidden and
Mystical Wounds.
I. Our Lady is always linked to
the Church as Mother: each time she is wounded, the Church is wounded. The motherhood of women and the fatherhood of
men are wounded and when their roles are disordered children are wounded, their
innocence crucified especially in abortion.
Our Lady comes close to her children, to their crosses, which are the
Cross of Christ. She instinctively knows
that every wound can be healed by the power of Christ's Wounds: this healing
which flows from Christ through the Sacraments of the Church. The awareness of the dignity of their roles
stops the wounding. Each time the divine
order of things is distorted by sin, the result is crucified innocence and many
wounds: which effect the whole body of Christ. Our Lady delights when she sees
our progress because it is our progression in her Son's Divine Innocence. Because of her continual intercession down
the centuries for us, her Son orders us to honor her Hidden and Mystical Wounds
(Mystical is intimately united with the Mystical Body, the
II. The eternal divine purpose was that all
things be subjected to God, so that He may be all in all (1Cor 15:28): which
means a union between God and His human creatures. In creation, our first parents were subjected
to God by sanctifying grace, and united to Him through faith, hope, and
charity. Being created in the image of
God, they were free in their love of God just as God loved them freely. There was an operative alliance between God
and mankind. It was operative as an
exchange of mutual love. However, our
first parents broke this alliance, rejecting subjection to God’s Wisdom and
Will, and they preferred to seek independently their good according to their
own thought and desire.
God’s Love, being
unchanged, wants the restoration of the primitive alliance, but at a higher
level. This new alliance would be, not
only operative, but entitative: which means that in One Divine Person, the Son,
divine nature and human nature would be united by one Divine Act of Being. However mankind’s consent is required to draw
up this new alliance.
As a partner in this new
alliance, God chose a Virgin from
The Holy Spirit is
identical to the Divine Act of Being, common to the Three Divine Persons. In the Divine Act of Being, all men are
contained as creatures pre-existing in their Creator. Mary also is contained in the Divine Act of
Being, and she is one with all men as such.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon her (Lk 1:35), first uniting her will to
Himself, her free consent is made as one with all mankind’s will to accept the
Incarnation. Thus, when she says: “Let
what you have said be done onto me” the new alliance between God and mankind is
prepared, through Mary’s mediation, on the side of mankind. Then, the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and
the Son, actualises the generative faculty of Mary, when the Son takes her as
His mother, through that same Divine Act of Being. From her, He assumes into His Divine Person
an individual human nature; when Mary conceives the Son of God as her Son in
human nature, the new alliance of divine nature and human nature is completed.
The Son of God Incarnate,
Jesus Christ, subsists in His individual human nature, which is a part of His
Person. He exercises His Divine Act of
Being in it and through it. All men
pre-existing and contained in this Divine Act of Being, subsist and operate
with Christ, in it and through it. When
Christ acts, suffers, dies, rises, they act, suffer, die and rise in Him and
with Him.
Mary, being the Mother of
Christ, is the Mother of all men contained in Christ. As the Holy Spirit remains united to her operating
love in her Heart, she is united to all men by the same motherly love, which
unites her to Christ. Old Simeon
foretold her that a sword of sorrow would pierce her Heart (Lk 2:35): which was
the prophecy of Christ’s Passion, but also of all sufferings of mankind, her
children, through the centuries. Her
Compassion wounds her Heart: being the Mother of Christ, who is Divine Mercy,
she is the Mother of Mercy, wholly and perfectly merciful. She is united to her Son in His work of Mercy
by the Holy Spirit. She bears in her
Heart all the wounds of her children especially in our times when the plague of
abortion breaks all bounds, her Heart is wounded by the millions and millions
of children killed before birth.
Mary is subjected and
ordered by the Holy Spirit to Christ, not only as her Son, but also as the
Word, in whom she will see God. After
the Assumption, being glorified in soul and body, she sees in the Word all men,
her sons, actually living and suffering.
At the time of Christ’s Passion, the object of her Compassion was, not
only Christ, but all men contained as pre-existing in Christ. Then, her Heart was wounded, not only by
Christ’s sufferings, but also by the sufferings of all mankind in all times.
Historically, her
Compassion is ended and replaced by a sharing in Divine beatitude. Christ who, through the Holy Spirit, was the
principle of her Merciful Compassion at the time of His Passion, now uses her
as His instrument to apply, to actually suffering men, the effects of her
affective mercy: His Divine Act of Being, being eternal and co-existing for all
times, joins her historical Compassion as an instrumental cause to its present
effects. This explains why Our Lady
appears sometimes weeping and expressing her sorrows as present, showing her
Heart as wounded by mankind’s sins and sufferings. That is a presence as a cause to its actual
effects. Being the result of the mystery
of Christ’s Divine Act of Being operating through her, this presence is
mysterious: that is the reason why Mary is called the Mother of the Hidden and
Mystical Wounds.