Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Now come, Savior of the heathens), BWV 62, in Leipzig for the first Sunday in Advent and first performed it on 3 December 1724. It is based on Martin Luther's Advent hymn "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland", a paraphrase of the Latin hymn "Veni redemptor gentium". The cantata is part of Bach's chorale cantata cycle, the second cycle during his tenure as Thomaskantor that began in 1723. In the format of this cycle, the text of the first and last stanzas of the hymn is retained unchanged while the text of the inner stanzas was paraphrased by an unknown librettist into a sequence of alternating arias and recitatives. The cantata is opened by a chorale fantasia and closed by a four-part chorale setting. The cantata is scored for four vocal soloists, a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of horn only to support the chorale melody, two oboes, strings and basso continuo. (WikiPedia)

Katherine Watt
Bailiwick News

Madonna and Child with St. Dominic and St. Thomas
Aquinas. Fra Angelico. (From Wikipedia)

Response to some reader questions about why I read aloud from the Summa Simplified book:

💬 As a non-Catholic, how does this all pertain to me? Why should I look at it?

As with all of what I publish at Bailiwick, no reader is obligated to read it, look at it or listen to it. I offer it for anyone for whom it is of interest.

Catholic teaching pertains to you because you have a soul, the eternal salvation of which is of interest to me, and should be of interest to you.

💬 Why is this writing of St. Thomas so important? As with much of the canon, it is simply too long to wade into hoping to be able to eventually figure out whether it holds anything for me. A distillation or summary would be helpful, if you have a link.

The things I'm reading aren't St. Thomas himself. The Summa Simplified is an abridged or condensed version, written in English by two priests and published in 1952, of the full Summa Theologica written in Latin by St. Thomas Aquinas between 1265 and 1274.

The reason I'm reading that out loud, and not something else, is because I came across it in the collection of my late father's Catholic books when I was struggling last November with the magnitude of the deception I was reading about in the biological product law. When I began reading the English translation of St. Thomas's main work, I found opportunities for intellectual rest because it's words about what is true, and thus the opposite of, or balm for, the reams of painful false words (better known as lies) that I've been immersed in for most of the last four years.

Nahida Izzat,
Exiled Palestinian
Poetry For Palestine

حبيبي

حبيبي وخالقي وسيدي ومولاي
كن حاضراً في قلبي
إن سكت أو تحدثت
إن نمت او استيقظت
إن سكنت أو تحركت
إن فتحت عيني أو أغمضت
إن سعدت أو حزنت
إن أمنت أو خفت
إن أُكرمت أو أُهنت
إن دُعمت أو خُذلت
وإن رُزقت أو مُنعت

Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Life Site News

Editor’s note: The following essay is the full English translation of a statement from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in response to the charge of schism from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, published in Italian on June 28, 2024. (Life Site News)

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò argues that he is not in schism with the Catholic Church and accuses ‘Jorge Maria Bergoglio of heresy and schism,’ requesting that he be ‘removed from the throne which he has unworthily occupied for over 11 years.’

‘But even if we or an angel from heaven
Should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you,
let that one be accursed.
As we have said before, and now I say again,
if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received,
let him be anathema.’ — Gal 1:8-9

“When I think that we are in the palace of the Holy Office, which is the exceptional witness of the Tradition and of the defense of the Catholic Faith, I cannot stop myself from thinking that I am at home, and that it is me, whom you call ‘the traditionalist,’ who should judge you.” So spoke Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1979, when he was summoned to the former Holy Office, in the presence of the prefect, Cardinal Franjo Šeper, and two other prelates.

As I stated in my communiqué of June 20, I do not recognize the authority of the tribunal that claims to judge me, nor of its prefect, nor of the one who appointed him. This decision of mine, which is certainly painful, is not the result of haste or a spirit of rebellion; but rather is dictated by the moral necessity which, as bishop and successor of the apostles, obliges me in conscience to bear witness to the truth, that is, to God Himself, to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Life Site News

The following is the full text of a May 10 speech given by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò at the Auditorium Gavirate in Varese, Italy. A “forensic” approach to the psychopandemic crime Statement for the Congress “Death denied” Auditorium Gavirate (Varese, Italy), May 10, 2024

You have the devil as your father,
and you want to fulfill your Father’s desires.
He was a murderer from the beginning
and did not persevere in the truth,
for there is no truth in him.
When he speaks falsely, he speaks of his own,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Jn 8:44

In a speech [in May] in Italy, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò said, 'Pretending that we are dealing with vile merchants interested only in money and refusing to see the Satanic matrix of the globalist plan is an unforgivable mistake that none of us can make.'

One of the most immediate effects of the infernal and manipulative psychopandemic operation is the refusal of the masses to acknowledge that they have been the object of a colossal fraud. Under the pretext of preventing the spread of a virus, presented as deadly and incurable – and which we now know has never been isolated according to Koch’s postulates – billions of people have been forced to undergo inoculation with an experimental drug that was known to be ineffective for its stated purpose. And in order to accomplish this, the authorities in charge have not hesitated to discredit existing treatments which would have made it impossible for that genetic serum to be authorized for sale.

Schuyler Ebbets

My parents met in Manhattan New York on the subway. My mother worked as an executive secretary in one of New York's many skyscrapers and my father was a draftsman designer at the Dealavalve Separator company. After getting married they rented a small apartment in Greenwich Village New York and soon after that, I was born. My parents were talented professionals and nonconformists and reveled in the beatnik scene so prevalent in Greenwich Village during the fifties. Eventually, my father landed a job working for Electric Boat near Groton Connecticut, drawing the plans for America's first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus. What began as a very good job soon turned into a lucrative career drawing and designing America's entire submarine fleet.

So my mother quit her job in New York and they bought their first home in New London, Connecticut. I remember as a five-year-old child going with my parents to look at different houses along the rocky Connecticut coastline. Eventually, they found a house they liked with an unusual stretch of beautiful white sand beach. Our home on the beach attracted many interesting people. The house was always full of guests on the weekends and the gatherings often became parties with loud music, drinking, and dancing late into the night. I had an exceptionally interesting childhood surrounded by my brother's friends from prep school and Harvard and my parent's friends. There were several young submarine crewmen and their girlfriends who came to visit. My father became acquainted with them while inspecting their ships for his employer Electric Boat. My father had been a lieutenant in the navy and enjoyed an instant rapport with the young crewmen.

Nahida Izzat,
Exiled Palestinian

Dear God
Ten years ago, I sent you a letter
Innocent, hopeful, trusting and pure
Now I'll send it to You again

A new translation by David Curtis, second draft

(Pages 1-6 are missing)
Page 7

The disciples asked:¹ "Teach us about the material world. Will it last forever, or is everything impermanent?"²

The Saviour answered: “All that is created, everything that is formed, every natural thing, all exist interdependently³ in and with each other. Then each will be dissolved again back into its own roots. It is the way of nature that everything will eventually decompose back into its own elements⁴. Those who have ears, let them hear.”

Peter said to him: “While you are explaining everything to us, tell us one more thing: What is the sin of the world?”

The Saviour answered: “There is no such thing as sin⁵, you only make it appear when you act according to the habits of your adulterated nature: that is how what you call 'sin' manifests⁶.This is why the Good has come into your midst, pursuing the good which is in everyone, to restore it inward to its root.” Then he continued, saying: “This is what sickens and destroys you: it is your love for the things that deceive you. Those who have ears, let them hear. Whoever can understand, let them understand!"

____________________________________________________________________________________________

¹ ‘The disciples asked’ is an addition but is helpful to set the scene and seems uncontroversial.
² Intentional Buddhist reference in using ‘impermanent’. Some of the interpretations in this translation include understandings from a Buddhist perspective.
³ Another intentional Buddhist reference ‘interdependent’, this also sits well with a Franciscan view of our relationship and connection with the rest of creation.
⁴ Tuckett p139 The Saviour’s answer here is that, while all material things—‘all natures, all forms, all creatures’ form a unity at present, they will all ‘be dissolved again into their roots’. ‘Root’ here probably means ‘original state’, so that what is being claimed is that the destiny of all material things, all ‘matter’, is that they will be dissolved into their original constituent parts.
⁵ Richard Rohr, Falling Upward p12 ‘theologically and objectively speaking, we are already in union with God. But it is very hard for people to believe or experience this….’ See also Julian of Norwich
⁶ Buddhist understanding that ultimately suffering and the causes of suffering are essentially illusory, we make them appear. In more Christian language, we are always in direct personal union with God if only we knew it, but we habitually behave in ways which obscure this and we reap the consequences of our actions, of our falling in love with the things that deceive us. Quaker Faith and Practice 26.31 – Divine Love “does not create heaven and hell for us, but allows us to do that for ourselves."

(LifeSiteNews) — The following is the written text of a sermon given by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on September 11, 2023.

Abortion is an act of worship to Satan. It is a human sacrifice offered to demons, and this is proudly affirmed by the very adepts of the 'church of Satan.'

You can go to prison because of abortion: prison is the penalty imposed in some nations for those who stop in silent prayer in front of a clinic where children are killed. But you don’t go to jail if you kill an innocent creature.

You can be discriminated against because of abortion: discrimination is the social stigma placed on those who are concerned about the life of the child killed in the womb, which is considered “a clump of cells” until the moment before it is born, and for some murderers in our governments is still considered such even after being born.

R. B. Johannessen

My aching lips would tremble...barely...
And would whisper...God? – Please
Speak of the eons in search of...This.

And a silent peace came over me. I sensed
A loving presence...oh Holy Spirit!
His quiet Voice then spoke to me...

Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei

Mindfulness is wordless. Mindfulness is meeting the moment as it is, moment after moment after moment, wordlessly attending to our experiencing as it actually is. It is opening to not just the fragments of our lives that we like or dislike or view as important, but the whole of our experiencing.

But what does the word "mindfulness" mean? The English word "mindfulness" - that we use - is a translation of the Pali, Sanskrit and Japanese terms, "sati", "smirti" and "nen". Another English translation of the Pali word "sati" is "memory". This is what "mindfulness" means - memory. But when I say "memory", I am not referring to the habitual crunching of attention that people engage in when they are trying to remember things past. The kind of memory I am speaking of is the capacity to remember that allows you to remember reality in this moment. It is this capacity that allows you to understand the meaning of each word I am saying as I am saying it. Without it, there would be no continuity to your experiencing whatsoever.

This capacity to remember is a "mental factor" A mental factor is a gathering or grouping of movements of attention that make up how we perceive, or can condition how we interpret what we are experiencing, depending upon whether they are open or closed. "Mindfulness of mental factors" is one of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness as taught by the Buddha in the Mahasatipattana sutta. And so to understand what the word "mindfulness" means, we need to understand what a mental factor is.

St. Maximilian Kolbe

Just a few hours before his second and final arrest, St. Maximilian Kolbe on February 17, 1941, wrote down his last reflections on the Immaculate Conception. The question, Who are you, O Immaculate Conception? occupied his priestly mind and heart forming him to be a living witness of the power of the Immaculate and to die as a living offering of love. – The Remnant

                                                 — ♰ —

“IMMACULATE CONCEPTION". — These words fell from the lips of the Immaculata herself. Hence, they must tell us in the most precise and essential manner who she really is.

Since human words are incapable of expressing divine realities, it follows that these words: “Immaculate,” and “Conception” must be understood in a much more profound, much more beautiful and sublime meaning than usual: a meaning beyond that which human reason at its most penetrating, commonly gives to them.

St. Paul wrote, quoting the Prophet Isaiah: “Things that the eye has not seen, that the ear has not heard, that the heart of man has not imagined” (Is. 64,4), such are the good things that God has prepared for those who love him (I Cor. 2,9). Here, these words apply fully.

However, we can and should reverently inquire into the mystery of the Immaculata and try to express it with words provided by our intelligence using its own proper powers.