A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Dom Prosper Gueranger, prophet warning of the attack on marriage May 29, 2014

I try to read some of Dom Prosper Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year every day.  I intended to try to take up some of the slack left by the sad closure of Ars Orandi, but I am afraid I haven’t succeeded too brilliantly at that.  But I did read the following on Saturday that I thought really deserved to be shared, especially in light of the “Kasperite” attempt to basically undermine marriage and belief in the Real Presence by pretending that bigamy/adultery is no longer a sin.  Attacks on marriage have been one of the prime vehicles of the cultural revolutionaries gambit against the Church, as Dom Gueranger notes, along with some wonderful exegesis on the sanctity of marriage:

The angels were all created at one and the same time: but the members of the human race were to be born, each indeed from their respective parents, but yet so as that Adam and Eve were to be the common parents to whom all were to owe their origin. [Paging Fr. Barron, Fr. Barron!]  Such was our Creator’s design, and marriage was the means he selected for its fulfillment. An immense multitude of the angels having fallen, the places destined for them in Heaven were to be filled up by the elect of earth; again, it was marriage that was to provide these citizens for Heaven.  [Isn’t that beautiful?  We get to replace the fallen angels, should we cooperate with Grace?  I have never really heard this expounded before, but it is a beautiful thought] Hence, God blessed marriage at the very commencement of the world, and with a blessing which was to be permanent, for, as the Church teaches us in the Liturgy, “it was not recalled, either by the punishment inflicted on Original Sin, or by the sentence which destroyed the world by the deluge.” (Missale Romanum Frefatio super Sponsam)

Even before this second great chastisement came upon the earth, [The Flood] all flesh had corrupted its way (Gen VI:12), and marriage had fallen from the elevated dignity given to it by the Creator.  The end for which he instituted it was forgotten; it was debased into a mere sensual gratification; it lost the sacred unity, which was its glory.  Polygamy and divorce destroyed its primitive character, and two frightful evils ensued: family ties were at an end, and woman’s position was degraded into that of a being which must minister to man’s passions. [Does that not perfectly describe our situation today?  19th century sanctity and virtue probably prevented Dom Gueranger from relating what the tradition holds as the direct cause of the Flood – when they began to give men to men, and women to women, as “married” couples.  And worse.  Tradition has held that for over 2000 years, the great Fathers spoke on this, and yet we are giddily playing with the same fire.] The lesson intended to be conveyed by the Deluge was soon lost sight of; the world again became depraved, so much so indeed, that when the Mosaic Law came with its reforms, it had not power to restore to marriage the dignity of its first institution.  [And thus Mosaic Law permitted divorce, leaving marriage wounded.  The paragraph above deserves much meditation.  It is just packed full of deep lessons]

To effect this, it was requisite that God Himself should descend up on the earth.  When the miseries of humanity had reached their height, the Word, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, assumed our human nature, and dwelt amongst us.  He called Himself the Bridegroom (St. Matt IX:15).  The prophets and the Canticle of Canticles had foretold that He would take to himself a Spouse from among mortals. This Spouse is the Church – that is, the human race purified by baptism and enriched with supernatural gifts.  As a dowry, he gave her His own Precious Blood and merits; and then united Her to Himself forever.  This Spouse is One; He affectionately calls Her His Only One (Cant VI:8). On Her part, She has no other but Him.  Here we have revealed to us the divine type on which marriage was formed, which, as the Apostle teaches us, derives its holiness and dignity from its resemblance to the union existing between Christ and His Church (Eph V:32). The two unions are for the same end, and bear a mutual relation to each other. Jesus loves His Church with the tenderest affection; but His Church is the issue of human marriage, for it is marriage that provides the Church with Her children, and thus perpetuates Her existence upon earth. [Think on the glory, then, of being called to the married state and being given the gift of procreation!  Thus it is that Holy Mother Church has always counseled Her children that spouses should always be gratefully open to all the new life God provides for them.  And thus it is She has also directed that any means to frustrate the natural fecundity are gravely immoral, save for periodic continence, which can only be engaged in for grave reasons and with a constant openness to the receipt of new life.]  Let us not be surprised, therefore, that Jesus restored marriage to its primitive condition, and that He honors it as being His powerful aid in the accomplishment of His designs. [How far from this exalted understanding, how perverse, has our modern conception of marriage become!]

We have already seen, on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, how He selected the nuptial feast at Cana as the occasion of His working His first public miracle. By His accepting the invitation to assist, in company with His Blessed Mother, at the marriage, it is evident that He wished to honor, by His Divine Presence, the sacred engagement which was to unite the two spouses; it is evident that He intended to renew, in their persons, the ancient blessing given in Paradise.  Having, by His miracle at Cana, proved Himself to be truly the Son of God, He began His public life and preaching.  his object being to reform fallen man to the noble end for which He had been created, he frequently made marriage the subject of His instructions.  He spoke of its being divinely instituted on the basis of unity. He authoritatively repeated the command given at its first institution: They shall be two in one flesh (Gen II:24).  Two, and only two.  Speaking of the indissolubility of the marriage tie, He told His hearers that no power on earth, not even the unfaithfulness, however criminal, of the husband or wife, could sever the bond.  These were His words: “What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder, Cardinal Walter Kasper” (St. Matt XIX:6). Thus did He restore marriage to its normal state; thus did He abrogate the degrading liberty, or more correctly, the libertinism, of polygamy and divorce – those sad proofs of the hardness of man’s heart (St. Matt XIX:8), and of the need he had of a Redeemer. Thus did the New Law bring back to marriage its primal blessing, and make it once more a holy state, which, so far from being an obstacle, is a means to virtue, and peoples both earth and Heaven with the elect!……..

{leaving out a whole bunch of incredible stuff, but I can’t copy it all. It deals with marriage’s institution as a Sacrament, and what a glorious institution that is.  It further repudiates the entire Kasperite notion regarding bigamy/adultery and the Blessed Sacrament, which view I am pleased to see seems to be in at least a tactical retreat of late.  Go here, pp. 270-272, if you want to read what I’ve left out.  Picking up again midway through p. 272:]

Here is the secret of the world’s regeneration: it was Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself who created the beautiful existence of a Christian family, and implanted it on our earth.  Long ages passed, and this was the type which, in spite human frailty, was the only one acknowledged either by the conscience of individuals or by the public laws of nations.  But the pagan element, which may be repressed, but which never dies, strove to regain what it had lost; and at length the time came when it succeeded in falsifying, in the majority of “Christian” countries, the notion of marriage. [And the United States, founded on libertine “enlightenment” notions, long gave scandal to the rest of Christendom by its early permissiveness towards divorce, dating back very nearly to its founding.  Of course, the permissiveness towards divorce was an early, essentially a foundational, characteristic of protestantism]  Faith teaches us, that this contract, now become a Sacrament, comes under the jurisdiction of the Church, in what regards the bond, which constitutes its very essence: but the modern world looks on the Church as a power incompatible with the progress of liberty and enlightenment; and therefore the state takes the Church’s place, as often as it is deemed good for society, and marriage has been debased into a civil act.  [Sound familiar?  I remind folks that the entire basis for the “enlightenment” philosophy developed in the 18th century was to find some form of government/culture that would finally and totally usurp the influence of the Church in people’s lives.  But of course, Dom Gueranger was writing before the canonized council.]  The immediate consequence of this has been, that the state can legalize divorce, and therefore paganize society.  The influence exercised over the weorld by the long predominance of the Christian spirit has not been entirely removed by this iniquitous secularization of marriage; still, from the principles laid down by our modern governments we have this logical and practical result: that a marriage may be indissoluble and sacramental in the eyes of the Church, and null in the eyes of the civil power……[Now, think on all the above, and then think about how the bishops in the US demand a civil divorce as the basis point for beginning the marriage tribunal process, which almost invariably leads to a declaration of nullity.  Does not such acquiescence show bishops who view the Church, in many respects, as subservient to the state?  It is an arguable point, perhaps, but that is one of the fundamental tenets of Americanism]………The rupture between Church and state is, therefore, consummated.

And yet what Christ has appointed cannot be effaced by man…….Therefore let Christians fear not: let them continue to receive from their Mother, the Church, the doctrine of the Sacraments; let them continue to look upon marriage as a divine institution…….and thus, they may save society and re-Christianize it, or, if that cannot be, they will save their own and their children’s souls….

———-End Quote———-

What a powerful, powerful exegesis!  What a condemnation of so many in the Church today, who seek continued rapprochement with, or even acquiescence to,  a horribly fallen culture!  Lord, give us a Dom Gueranger!  Raise up great Saints in Your Church to feed and save desperately hungry and lost souls!  Have mercy on us for our unfaithfulness, and soften our hardened hearts!

Please restore Your Church, Lord!  We beg you, night is falling around the world, and billions desperately need the light only You can provide!