Charisms are not equal to Holiness

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/charisms-sanctity

Spirit Guides?

Not too uncommon someone asks me after reading the blog or after listening to a conference I gave on Angels and Demons, regarding so-called spirit guides. If by "spirit guides" one intends what is written in this link, then there is nothing I can say about it except quote what is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2116 and 2117:

All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

In short, in Catholic understanding, these "spirit guides" are demonic in nature, period. They have nothing to do with authentic Catholic teaching on the Holy Guardian Angels and the Angelic Hosts in heaven nor with the Saints. All spirits outside those of the Saints and the Holy Angels are fallen angels and damned souls. These bring nothing ultimately to man except misery and perdition.

Who (or What) Was Lucifer?: An answer to Anti-Catholics who claim that the Easter Vigil Hymn Exsultet is a Hymn to the Devil

by Jimmy Akin

October 1, 2015

(from:  http://www.catholic.com/profiles/jimmy-akin. Accessed October 2, 2015)

Recently I got a query from someone wondering about an anti-Catholic video that claimed “the pope’s deacon” invoked Lucifer during the Easter Vigil liturgy and referred to Jesus as his Son.

Of course, that’s not what happened, but to understand what really did happen, you need to know a few things about “lucifer.”

What does the word lucifer mean?

It’s a Latin word derived from the roots lux (light) and ferre (to carry).

It means “light bearer” or “light bringer,” and it was not originally used in connection with the devil.

Instead, it could be used multiple ways. For example, anybody carrying a torch at night was a lucifer (light bringer).

It was also used as a name for the Morning Star (i.e., the planet Venus), because this is the brightest object in the sky other than the sun and the moon. As a result, Venus is the first star seen in the evening (the Evening Star) and the last star seen in the morning (the Morning Star).

Venus is also known—in English—as the Day Star because it can be seen in the day.

Because sight of it in the morning heralds the light of day, it was referred to by Latin speakers as the “light bringer” or lucifer.

So there was no connection with the devil?

No. In fact, it was used as an ordinary name. In the 300s, St. Lucifer of Cagliari was a defender of the deity of Christ and of St. Athanasius against the Arians.

Another bishop in the 300s—Lucifer of Siena—also bore this name.

Is the symbol of the Morning Star used in any surprising ways?

Yes. The Bible uses it as a symbol for Jesus Christ. In the book of Revelation, we read:

“I Jesus have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16).

(Spoiler alert! This is going to play a key role in what we have to say about the liturgy.)

So we shouldn’t freak out just because we see references to the words “lucifer” or “light bringer” or “morning star”?

Correct. These terms have no intrinsic connection to the devil. In fact, they may be used—as in Scripture itself—as symbols of Jesus Christ.

How did this word get connected with the devil?

It’s based on a passage in the book of Isaiah. Chapter 14 of that book contains a taunt (a kind of ancient insult song or poem—like you might find at a modern rap battle) against one of the oppressors of Israel: the king of Babylon.

It predicts his downfall, but it also depicts his pride, which sets him up for the downfall:

How you are fallen from heaven,

O Day Star, son of Dawn!

How you are cut down to the ground,

you who laid the nations low! (Is. 14:12).

In the Latin Vulgate, that’s:

Quomodo cecidisti de caelo,

lucifer, fili aurorae?

Deiectus es in terram,

qui deiciebas gentes.

The king of Babylon thus fancies himself as something high and mighty—like the Day Star itself—but God brings him low in the end.

In this passage, the reference to the Day Star/the Morning Star/lucifer is thus an ironic allusion to the king of Babylon’s prideful self-image.

But surely we’re talking about the human king of Babylon, not the devil. Doesn’t the passage refer to him as a man who dies?

Yes. This passage explicitly refers to the king of Babylon as a man (Heb., ’ish) who conquered kingdoms:

Those who see you will stare at you, and ponder over you:

“Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?” (Is. 14:16-17).

It also refers multiple times to his decay after death and how he will not lie in his own tomb!

Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps;

maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering” (Is. 14:11).

 All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb; but you are cast out, away from your sepulcher, like a loathed untimely birth (Is. 14:18-19).

So we’re talking about a human king—at least in the literal sense of the text.

How did this passage get connected with the devil?

Some of the early Church Fathers took it that way.

They compared the pride that the king of Babylon displays in the passage—“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High” (Is. 14:14)—with the pride of the devil.

They also compared the fall of the king of Babylon to Jesus' statement that he “saw Satan fall like lightning” (Luke 10:18)—though in context that passage refers to the defeat of the devil in the ministry in which the apostles had just engaged.

It is legitimate to use the spiritual sense of this text as an application to the devil, but many people have lost sight of the literal sense of the text, which applies to the human king of Babylon.

Worse, in the popular mind, “Lucifer” has simply become a name for the devil, and that causes problems when people who are familiar with only this use encounter other uses of the term—as in the Latin liturgy.

Is this just a Catholic interpretation?

No. In fact, the Protestant Reformers Luther and Calvin acknowledged it.

Luther wrote:

12. How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer! This is not said of the angel who once was thrown out of heaven but of the king of Babylon, and it is figurative language. Isaiah becomes a disciple of Calliope and in like manner laughs at the king. Heylel [the Hebrew word used in the text] denotes the morning star, called Lucifer and the son of Dawn. “Heaven” is where we are with our heads, and that is obviously above the ground, just as that most powerful and extremely magnificent king was once above, but now his lamp is extinguished (Luther’s Works 16:140; Preface to the Prophet Isaiah, ch. 14).

Calvin was quite hostile to the application of this passage to the devil, writing:

12. How art thou fallen from heaven! Isaiah proceeds with the discourse which he had formerly begun as personating the dead, and concludes that the tyrant differs in no respect from other men, though his object was to lead men to believe that he was some god. He employs an elegant metaphor, by comparing him to Lucifer, and calls him the Son of the Dawn; and that on account of his splendor and brightness with which he shone above others. The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance; for the context plainly shows that these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians. But when passages of Scripture are taken up at random, and no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that mistakes of this kind frequently arise. Yet it was an instance of very gross ignorance, to imagine that Lucifer was the king of devils, and that the Prophet gave him this name. But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let us pass by them as useless fables (Commentary on Isaiah at 14:12).

So what have anti-Catholics claimed about the Easter Vigil liturgy?

Some have claimed that “the pope’s deacon” invoked Lucifer and described Jesus as the devil’s Son.

This claim is based on translating part of the Easter Vigil liturgy this way:

Flaming Lucifer who finds mankind;

I say O Lucifer, who will never be defeated.

Christ is your Son, who came back from Hell;

shed his peaceful light and is alive and reigns in the world without end.

What’s the real story?

The pope does not have a personal deacon, though deacons can sing the part of the Easter Vigil liturgy known as the Exsultet, Easter Proclamation, or Paschal Proclamation. (Exsultet is its first word in Latin: “Let them exult!”)

You can read about it here.

The Exsultet is part of a ceremony involving the paschal candle, which symbolizes the light of Christ.

In Latin, the relevant part of the Exsultet reads:

Orámus ergo te, Dómine,

ut céreus iste in honórem tui nóminis consecrátus,

ad noctis huius calíginem destruéndam,

indefíciens persevéret.

Et in odórem suavitátis accéptus,

supérnis lumináribus misceátur.

Flammas eius lúcifer matutínus invéniat:

ille, inquam, lúcifer, qui nescit occásum.

Christus Fílius tuus,

qui, regréssus ab ínferis, humáno géneri serénus illúxit,

et vivit et regnat in sæcula sæculórum.

In good English (as opposed to the incompetent translation given by the anti-Catholic commentator), this means:

Therefore, O Lord,

we pray you that this candle,

hallowed to the honor of your name,

may persevere undimmed,

to overcome the darkness of this night.

Receive it as a pleasing fragrance,

and let it mingle with the lights of heaven.

May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star:

the one Morning Star who never sets,

Christ your Son,

who, coming back from death's domain,

has shed his peaceful light on humanity,

and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Up to the first reference to the Morning Star, this passage of the Exsultet is asking God to let the paschal candle continue to give light, so that it still be burning in the morning (“May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star”).

Then the prayer pivots to reconceive of the Morning Star not as the literal one in the sky but as Jesus Christ himself, based on the symbol in Revelation 22:16 (“the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son”).

It is a moving, poetic prayer to God—not an invocation of the devil.

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About the Author:

Jimmy Akin is an internationally known author and speaker. As the senior apologist at Catholic Answers, he has more than twenty years of experiencing defending and explaining the Faith.

Jimmy is a convert to the Faith and has an extensive background in the Bible, theology, the Church Fathers, philosophy, canon law, and liturgy.

Jimmy is a weekly guest on the national radio program Catholic Answers Live, a regular contributor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a popular blogger and podcaster. His personal web site is JimmyAkin.com.

13 Warnings from Pope Francis on Man’s Oldest Foe, the Devil

(Taken from: http://www.churchpop.com/2014/10/07/13-pope-francis-quotes-oldest-foe-devil/ . Accessed 27 September 2015)

So the greatest trick of the Devil is convincing people he doesn’t exist?

Pope Francis is not impressed.

Starting with his very first homily as the bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has regularly reminded believers that the Devil is real, that we must be on guard, and that our only hope against him is in Jesus Christ.

Here are are 13 of Pope Francis’ most direct quotes on the matter.

1) “When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.”

First homily, 3/14/2013 – http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-1st-homily-full-text

2) “The Prince of this world, Satan, doesn’t want our holiness, he doesn’t want us to follow Christ. Maybe some of you might say: ‘But Father, how old fashioned you are to speak about the devil in the 21st century!’ But look out because the devil is present! The devil is here… even in the 21st century! And we mustn’t be naïve, right? We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”

Homily on 4/10/2014 – http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-satan-exists-in-the-21st-century-and

3) “[The Devil] attacks the family so much. That demon does not love it and seeks to destroy it. […] May the Lord bless the family. May He make it strong in this crisis, in which the devil wishes to destroy it.”

Homily, 6/1/2014 – https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-the-devil-wants-to-destroy-the-family

4) “It is enough to open a newspaper and we see that around us there is the presence of evil, the Devil is at work. But I would like to say in a loud voice ‘God is stronger.’ Do you believe this, that God is stronger?”

General audience, 6/12/2013 – http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/god-is-stronger-pope-insists-as-he-urges-outreach/

5) “Let us ask the Lord for the grace to take these things seriously. He came to fight for our salvation. He won against the devil! Please, let us not do business with the devil! He seeks to return home, to take possession of us… Do not relativize; be vigilant! And always with Jesus!”

Homily, 11/8/2013 – http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2013/10/11/pope__guard_against_deceit_of_the_devil/en1-736378

6) “The presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil, with the victory of God over the devil.”

Homily, 11/8/2013 – http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2013/10/11/pope__guard_against_deceit_of_the_devil/en1-736378

7) “Either you are with me, says the Lord, or you are against me… [Jesus came] to give us the freedom… [from] the enslavement the devil has over us… On this point, there are no nuances. There is a battle and a battle where salvation is at play, eternal salvation. We must always be on guard, on guard against deceit, against the seduction of evil.”

Homily, 10/11/2013 – http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2013/10/11/pope__guard_against_deceit_of_the_devil/en1-736378

8) “The devil plants evil where there is good, trying to divide people, families and nations. But God… looks into the ‘field’ of each person with patience and mercy: he sees the dirt and the evil much better than we do, but he also sees the seeds of good and patiently awaits their germination.”

Homily, 7/20/2014 – http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/07/20/pope_francis_prays_for_peace_in_the_middle_east/1103115

9) “The devil cannot stand seeing the sanctity of a church or the sanctity of a person, without trying to do something.”

Homily, 5/7/2014 – http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/05/07/pope_at_mass_church_is_not_just_a_school_of_religion/1100285

10) “Note well how Jesus responds [to temptation]: He doesn’t dialogue with Satan, as Eve did in the terrestrial Paradise. Jesus knows well that one can’t dialogue with Satan, because he is so cunning. For this reason, instead of dialoguing, as Eve did, Jesus chooses to take refuge in the Word of God and to respond with the power of this Word. Let us remind ourselves of this in the moment of temptation…: not arguing with Satan, but defending ourselves with the Word of God. And this will save us.”

Angelus address, 3/9/2014 – http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/03/09/pope_francis_at_angelus__one_cant_dialogue_with_satan/en1-779938

11) “We too need to guard the faith, guard it from darkness. Many times, however, it is a darkness under the guise of light. This is because the devil, as saint Paul, says, disguises himself at times as an angel of light.”

Homily, 1/6/2014 –  http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/01/06/pope_epiphany_mass__follow_the_light_that_leads_to_christ/en1-761607

12) “Behind every rumor there is jealousy and envy. And gossip divides the community, destroys the community. Rumors are the weapons of the devil.”

Homily, 1/23/2014 – http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/01/23/pope_at_mass__jealousy_divides_and_destroys_christian_communities/in2-766554

13) “Let us always remember… that the Adversary wants to keep us separated from God and therefore instills disappointment in our hearts when we do not see our apostolic commitment immediately rewarded. Every day the devil sows the seeds of pessimism and bitterness in our hearts. … Let us open ourselves to the breath of the Holy Spirit, who never ceases to sow seeds of hope and confidence.”

Speech, 6/18/2013 - http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2013/06/18/pope_francis_opens_rome_diocese_annual_convention/en1-702499

Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding Masonic Associations

It is all around us now. You see them displayed prominently on many car windows, this Masonry sticker. Suddenly it has become vague for many to become a member of Masonry. I have even seen a priest's car with this sticker. However, the Catholic Church never really lifted its anathema of Freemasonry or whatever colorful name they call it. And in the ministry of spiritual liberation and exorcism, personal membership to this secret group or anyone of direct ancestors will always serve a hindrance to healing of liberation. It goes to show how vile the bondage is.

Here is the document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the prohibition for Catholics to join this group. It is lamentable that Bishops and Priests are really oblivious to the dangers it bring not only to the Church as a whole but for the salvation of men.

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Premise. Freemasonry was condemned as incompatible with the Christian faith by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Humanum genus, in 1884. The 1983 document from CDF affirms the status quo.

Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding Masonic Associations

It has been asked whether there has been any change in the Church’s decision in regard to Masonic associations since the new Code of Canon Law does not mention them expressly, unlike the previous Code.

This Sacred Congregation is in a position to reply that this circumstance in due to an editorial criterion which was followed also in the case of other associations likewise unmentioned inasmuch as they are contained in wider categories.

Therefore the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enrol in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.

It is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to give a judgment on the nature of Masonic associations which would imply a derogation from what has been decided above, and this in line with the Declaration of this Sacred Congregation issued on 17 February 1981 (cf. AAS 73 1981 pp. 240-241; English language edition of L’Osservatore Romano, 9 March 1981).

In an audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II approved and ordered the publication of this Declaration which had been decided in an ordinary meeting of this Sacred Congregation.

Rome, from the Office of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 26 November 1983.

Joseph Card. RATZINGER

Prefect

+ Fr. Jerome Hamer, O.P.

Titular Archbishop of Lorium

Secretary