Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Transition to www.corjesusacratissimum.org

Dear Reader,

As mentioned in the post just below, I will mainly be blogging at a new site. Not surprisingly, the address is just above and if you like, you can click on it for a link.

Yet as a way of "transition" to the new project, there are some final things I still want to do at this weblog.

I want to note for example, my not yet honoured promise below to publish the second half of my 2006 "Au Revoir" musings on France and the Sacred Heart. I think this promise will soon be honoured. Yet not here, but rather within the articles section of the new site ...

But there are other things as well.

There is quite a transition from this old weblog to the new project. Clearly it is a transition towards an ever more traditional Catholicism. In fact, I have changed so deeply these last years, that I have wondered if this weblog should be taken down.

For the moment, it remains. It seems to me that it has spoken to a few people of an esoteric Christian persuasion, and that perhaps by leaving it here as a "historical document" as it were, it can serve to illustrate the transition I have made.

And this in turn, could perhaps help others who are called to a similar kind of transition ...

"Called" to this transition. Yes, dear Reader, I believe I have been CALLED to make this transition.

And in time, I may well write more of this calling.

I will not say much for the moment. But I will note in passing, that I felt this call most deeply of all in the little town of Paray-le-Monial in France, the cite where the Sacred Heart revealed Himself to the world, and called for the Cult of the Sacred Heart.

Yes my life has changed forever in Paray ... the most astonishing place on earth I have ever experienced. Yes in the depths of silence in Paray, I have felt a call, I believe ...

Right now, I cannot easily say more of my interior path.

But exterior to that path, there are also the words of Valentin Tomberg, who made a transition from a purely esoteric Christianity to a traditional Catholicism.

Now esoteric Christians of the Anthroposophical kind, often fall into the trap of saying things like: "We KNOW through Anthroposophy that ..." or "Steiner says" ...

I have no wish to fall into a similar trap by saying "Tomberg says".

The deepest reasons for my transition to a traditional Catholicism lie, as I say, in my interior experience, most of all in the profound depths summoned forth in Paray-le-Monial ...

Yet while I have no wish to fall into the trap of "knowing" because "Tomberg says" ...

I nonetheless believe that there is profound value to be had in listening to Valentin Tomberg and pondering deeply these words of his from his final writings collected in Lazarus Come Forth.

(I am inserting some white space in the text that follows, not only because it helps in reading profound material from the internet, but also because I would invite you, dear Reader, if you care to, to read slowly and really breathe in each of these statements below ...

Yes breathe them in ... perhaps consciously noting your responses and reactions as you read ...):


“Let us consider what happened in the fourth century at the time when the Church entered into an alliance with the Roman Empire and the influence of the latter became paramount.

It was as if a dark cloud covered the sky.

It even came to a point when the center of Christianity itself – Christ himself as the Son made flesh – was to a large extent veiled, and Arianism for a time achieved almost complete dominance.

Then a strong fresh wind scattered the clouds and the sun of Christ as the Son of God shone forth again in the heavens as faith.

Not only a Pleiad of great believers (with Saint Athanasius at their head), and holy hermits such as St Anthony of Thebes (the friend of Athanasius) … were the fruit of this spiritual wind but also – and especially – the Council of Nicea with its wonderful creation of the Nicean Creed, which to this day has lost nothing of its inspiring and enlightening force and effect …

The Christianity of the hermits … was no passing phenomenon limited to a few centuries only.

Today it still lives with all the intensity of its youth. Though it may not be deserts and thick forests into which one can retire into an undisturbed solitude nowadays, there are still people who have found or created in the deserts of the great cities and among the thickets of the crowds, a solitude and stillness of life for the spirit.

And as before, their striving is devoted toward becoming a witness for the truth of Christianity.

The way into the depths has not led them to an individualistic brand of belief, but has given them unshakable security in the truth of Christian revelation as transmitted and taught by the Church.

They know the truth of the following: Extra Ecclesiam non est salus ("there is no salvation outside the church"); the Holy Father is not and cannot be the mouthpiece of an ecumenical council; the Holy See alone can make decisions in questions of faith and morals - a majority of the bishops cannot do so and even less can a majority of priests or congregations do so; the Church is hierarchic-theocratic - not democratic, aristocratic or monarchic - and will be so in all future times; the Church is the Civitas Dei ("the City of God") and not a superstructure of the will of the people belonging to the Church; as little as the shepherd follows the will of the herd does the Holy Father merely carry out the collective will of his flock; the shepherd of the Church is St Peter, representing Christ - his pronouncements ex cathedra are infallible, and the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven belongs to him and him alone.

In other words, those who become solitary in order to seek profundity may reach on their path of spiritual experience to the unshakeable insight that the dogmas of the Church are absolutely true.

And so it can happen that, as they did at the time of the Arian darkening of the Church, the "hermits" of today may come again to the assistance of the Holy See, leaving their solitude to appear as witnesses to the truth of Peter's throne and its infallible teaching.

In those times it happened that St Anthony of Thebes left the desert and hurried to Alexandria to support St Athanasius with the weight of his moral authority - St Athanasius who became the standard bearer for the divinity of Christ.

The darkening which today is described as “the present crisis of the Catholic Church” can lead to the necessity for the solitary sons of the Church to hurry to the aid of the Holy Father, the most solitary of solitaries, in order to save the Church from the abyss toward which she is moving. .."


Yes I find these are words to be pondered deeply indeed. I do not believe the author was invoking damnation for those who stay outside the Church in this present life ...

But I do believe he is sounding a call.

These words were written in the wake of the Second Vatican Council ... a subject on which the author has nothing at all good to say in this final book.

Speaking personally, Valentin Tomberg's account of Vatican II disturbed me very deeply for many years. I found his account of the Council more difficult than anything else in his entire writings.

I may well say more of these things in another entry at this weblog. We will see ...

I certainly intend to say more at my new site with my wife. I have an article in preparation there called: Valentin Tomberg - Trojan Horse or True Catholic?

Until I write more, I would just like to append these words from Meditations on the Tarot:

"One is being UNJUST (emphasis mine) towards the Catholic Church, when one sees instead of the Mystical Body of Christ, only its historical phantom, the fox.

In order to see rightly, one has to look rightly.

And to look rightly means to endeavour to see through the mists of the phantoms of things.

This is one of the principal practical precepts of Christian Hermeticism."

Friday, May 01, 2009

New Website: www.corjesusacratissimum.org

Re-entering cyberspace and the trajectory is a little clunky ...

Yes after years of poor internet access and other trials, I am back.

But I will be blogging at another, more ambitious site now, created with my beloved wife, Kim.

Not surprisingly, the address for the new site is in the headline above - which you can also click on as a link.

The site is not completely finished as I write, but it is ready enough.

And in the next weeks, there should be at least one last posting here, before retiring this site altogether.

My warm memories and greetings to the old readers who interacted with me before and made my experience of this weblog special ...

Roger