Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 14, 2018 Column Father De Celles
Supreme Court Nominee. Back in October of 2016, just before the last Presidential election, I wrote: “I see this election as voting mainly for the Supreme Court. As I’ve said before, the Justices (Judges) on the Supreme Court are the most powerful people in our government, as they regularly uphold or throw out decisions by our elected officials—both the President and those in Congress—as well as decades, centuries, and millennia of precedents and common sense assumptions of Western Society. For example, it was one vote (on a 5 to 4 vote), so one Justice, who overturned the immemorial unanimous belief that marriage was only between a male and female and it was one vote/Justice who kept abortion a fundamental inalienable right….And that’s what it comes down to for me: The Supreme Court and abortion, traditional marriage, religious liberty/freedom of conscience, and the attack on common sense (the transgendered issue). And the next President will select up to 4 members of the Supreme Court.”
On Wednesday, June 27, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. When he was nominated to the court in 1988 by President Reagan, Kennedy did not have a clear track record on the bench and was not very well known, but the people thought he would be a strong pro-life and traditional values Justice, since he was reputed to be a “conservative” and a faithful Catholic. But Kennedy proved to be a huge disappointment. He was the “one vote,” the “one Justice,” I was writing about in October, who redefined marriage and upheld the right to abortion.
To replace him, President Trump has nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Like Kennedy, Kavanaugh comes to us with a reputation for being a conservative and a faithful Catholic. But unlike Kennedy, Kavanaugh is extremely well known to pro-life, pro-religious liberty and pro-traditional marriage lawyers as being one of them. I do not know him personally, but have spoken to several very close and trusted friends of mine who do know him very well, and they all vehemently assure me that Kavanaugh is the real deal. Praised be Jesus Christ!
When many of us voted in November of 2016, we were voting not so much for either of the troubling candidates, but for the Supreme Court Justices they would appoint. President Trump, love him or hate him, has fulfilled his promise to appoint pro-life,etc. justices, in both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Unfortunately, the radical left has come unhinged, and are pledging to pull out all the stops to keep Kavanaugh from being approved by the Senate. With the increased vitriolic language and violent behavior of the left in the last year or so, I am greatly afraid for our nation, and especially for the wellbeing of Judge Kavanaugh and his family.
So I ask you to pray to Our Lord, with the intercession of Our Lady, that the process of Senate consent will be peaceful and just, and render a choice compatible with His Holy Will. “All things are possible for God.” In particular, I encourage you to pray to the two patron saints of lawyers, St. Thomas More and St. Raymond of Peñafort. I especially recommend the daily recitation of the new Prayer to St. Raymond of Peñafort:
“Glorious Saint Raymond of Peñafort, wise and holy patron, come to the aid of those entrusted to your care, and all who flee to your protection. Intercede for us in our need, and help us through your prayers, example, and teaching, to proclaim the truth of the Gospel to all we meet. And when we have reached the fullness of our years, we beseech you to guide us home to heaven, to live in peace with you, Our Mother Mary, and Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Brown Scapular. Tomorrow, Monday, July 16, is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, memorializing the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Simon Stock, a Carmelite priest, and her gift to him of the “Brown Scapular” on July 16, 1251. (The original Carmelite Brown Scapular is a long piece of fabric, as wide as the shoulders, worn down the front and back (reaching down to the feet) with a hole in the center for the head). “Take, beloved son,” she said, “this Scapular of your order as a badge of my confraternity and for you and all Carmelites a special sign of grace; whoever dies in this garment, will not suffer everlasting fire. It is the sign of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, a pledge of peace and of the covenant.” The Carmelites immediately began to wear this Scapular as part of their regular habit, and very soon many non-Carmelites, both lay and cleric, also began to wear it, usually in a smaller form of a two small pieces of cloth bound by two strings, worn around the neck, hanging down in front and back. This practice continues to this day.
From the beginning, it was understood that in order to participate in Our Lady’s promises the wearer of the Scapular must be officially associated with the Carmelite order. So the Carmelites established the “Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel,” which any Catholic may be enrolled in through a short ceremony conducted by a priest.
Even so, the Scapular is in no way a “a good luck charm.” Rather, as Pope Pius XII wrote, it “is a sign and a pledge of the protection of the Mother of God.” And as St. John Paul II wrote, it is a sign that evokes “the awareness that devotion to her cannot be limited to prayers and tributes in her honor on certain occasions, but must become a ‘habit’, that is, a permanent orientation of one’s own Christian conduct, woven of prayer and interior life, through frequent reception of the sacraments and the concrete practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.”
Moreover, the wearer of the Scapular may not “think that they can gain eternal salvation while remaining sinful and negligent of spirit.” You can’t live a sinful life presuming that the Scapular will erase all sins on your death bed. Rather, the Scapular is more a pledge of the Blessed Mother’s intercession at the moment of death, to obtain for us from her Son the grace necessary to repent of any mortal sins. But grace is not magic, it is a gift that we must accept. The soul that lives a life of sin is less disposed to accept (or even strongly disposed to reject) that grace.
Note: the promises of Our Lady are private revelations, and so not something we have to believe. Moreover, they should only be understood in the light of Church teaching. Even so, confidence in her promises, and wearing of the scapular, has been strongly promoted by scores of popes.
With this in mind, we will be enrolling folks in the Confraternity and investing them with the Brown Scapular today, July 15, after both the 8:45 and 10:30 Mass. Scapulars will be provided, or you may bring your own.
Oremus pro invicem, Fr. De Celles