Gestis verbisque? Tucho forgets that faith purifies reason with love that has no fear

At first glance, Gestis verbisque, the latest from Tucho and Francis, is waaaay out of character for both of them. What with a couple of citations from the Council of Trent, the “Note” appears to be ever so “rigid” when juxtaposed to the usual mishmash of the blaspheming porn king and his personal king-maker. So, what gives?

It was surely written at the time when it was discovered that sacraments were being provided invalidly, particularly baptism, especially in Brisbane, Australia and in these USA… but it was not published.

But it’s published right now, highly revised to the ends of Tucho. Why’s that? Conjecturally, it’s a set-up designed to cause a schism. It’s meant to jerk you in one direction and then, suddenly, in the other direction so hard that you end up outside the Church (in their view). Forewarned is forearmed.

• At the beginning of the document priests are threatened with exemplary punishment should they utilize alternative wording to the sacraments instead of reading precisely, exactly what is written. He seems to be speaking of an excommunication. That doesn’t sound like the porno-king, does it? Ah, but wait!
• As one continues to read, one feels like one is being bullied into accepting whatever it is that the synodal church will come up with for, say, the words of consecration at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, you know, by embracing the sensus fidelium. That sense of the faithful, that is, the correct appreciation of the univocal faith (call that Sacred Tradition), is wrought by the grace of supernatural faith, all this working on the conscience of the faithful, conscience that is purified by way of humble thanksgiving to Jesus for the forgiveness of one’s sin. Except in this case. Instead, today, in the “synodal church,” the sensus fidelium is whatever the bullies at the top of the heap ram down the throats of the Lord’s Little Flock by way of the dialectical Hegelian blah-blah of the synodalists of the Synod on Synodality, you know, what they purport to be any “conclusion” of the Synod. And what might that be?
• As it is, throughout the “Note” there is mention of Desiderio desideravi, the follow-up letter regarding Traditionis custodes. The latter insisted that the Novus ordo is the only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite” (l’unica espressione della lex orandi del Rito Romano). The lex orandi, the law of prayer is defined as the Consecrations at Holy Mass in the accompanying letter to the bishops. Of course, the Synod on Synodality is simply going to assert that the Consecrations at Holy Mass right through the centuries are now invalid, as did Traditionis custodes, that the only valid Consecrations now are those in the Novus ordo, but that, on behalf of the Novus ordo, the Synod on Synodality can change the words of the Consecrations to whatever is desired, you know, because we live today, and we are us, and we are nice, and let those priests who recite the Consecrations of, say, the Traditional Latin Mass, be anathema and condemned to hell for all eternity.

In other words, just a guess, but it seems that new Eucharistic Prayers will be published, along with new formulations for the Consecrations for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. These will likely be invalid, but a priest will be excommunicated as an “exemplary punishment” if he does not use them.

You think that’s a bit much? Let’s take an example, just an anecdote. In discussing such matters with an icon-of-orthodoxy-priest, a Canon lawyer who thrives on legal positivism, I spat out an example of the re-wording of the Consecrations at Holy Mass which might well be in the works:

• “Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many [all] for the forgiveness of sins [for the repentant and the unrepentant]. Do this in memory of me.”

That’s invalid, because our Lord’s blood was not at all poured out for the forgiveness of the unrepentant. After that consecration, you will merely have some bread, not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception. Clearly, this bogus, synodal “consecration” refers to a different lord of some kind for whom the priest cannot act in Persona Christi, but rather a prince of this world, say, Lucifer, or Beelzebub, or Satan…

Well, well. With end-of-the-world adrenaline bullying voice accompanied by browbeating which was to be seen even over a non-video phone conversation, this canon lawyer said, commanded really, that whatever it is that the Church comes up with, those are the words of consecration and we priests are to use them.

So, then I gave him another example, something along these lines, trying to be as sarcastic as I could possibly be:

• Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the future becoming of the omega point of evolutionary niceness somewhere out in the universe of ever so beautifully expanding platitudes for everyone! for everyone!! for everyone!!!

Well, well, he repeated with even more adrenaline bullying voice accompanied by browbeating which was to be seen even over a non-video phone conversation that whatever it is that the Church comes up with, those are the words of consecration and we priests are to use them because they are valid because the Church said so.

Well, well. There you have it. Legal positivism at its most diabolical, a denial of God-given reason, fideism which militates not only against reason but (and the aim is) against the faith.

Am I just cynical because of the Pope’s porn king is opening his kissy mouth once again to publish yet another “Note”? Perhaps I’m really just tired of all the heresy, apostasy, schism, tired of all the scandalizing of hundreds of millions of souls. Perhaps I haven’t seen the wounds of our Lord clearly enough, or put my fingers into the nail-prints, my hand into His side.

But maybe, just maybe, I’m learning to try to stay awake in the Garden of Gethsemane, where there is sweating of blood and crying out to our Heavenly Father. There is no great fear that came over Jesus, but rather great stress (εκθαμβεισθαι).

The cause of this stress was that He didn’t want His Immaculate Mother to witness His being tortured to death. The stress was such that there was almost a dichotomy between the human will of Jesus and the will of God the Father: “Not my will, but Thine be done.” What we do know is that there will be such an attack on the “Daily Sacrifice”, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that Holy Mass will be brought to an end (see Daniel 12:11).

May we all learn to be with Jesus, crying out, “Abba, Father!”