I haven't read it militant but was curious and found it online at this interesting website. I am going to read it now! Thanks for your post. http://www.catecheticsonline.com/Catechetics1.php
I read Part One this morning and it is an excellent exhortation to live a holy life. I loved the little chapter on our Lady: CHAPTER 4 : Catechism on the Blessed Virgin THE FATHER takes pleasure in looking upon the heart of the most Holy Virgin Mary, as the masterpiece of His hands; for we always like our own work, especially when it is well done. The Son takes pleasure in it as the heart of His Mother, the source from which He drew the Blood that has ransomed us; the Holy Ghost as His temple. The Prophets published the glory of Mary before her birth; they compared her to the sun. Indeed, the apparition of the Holy Virgin may well be compared to a beautiful gleam of sun on a foggy day. Before her coming, the anger of God was hanging over our heads like a sword ready to strike us. As soon as the Holy Virgin appeared upon the earth, His anger was appeased. . . . She did not know that she was to be the Mother of God, and when she was a little child she used to say, "When shall I then see that beautiful creature who is to be the Mother of God?" The Holy Virgin has brought us forth twice, in the Incarnation and at the foot of the Cross; she is then doubly our Mother. The Holy Virgin is often compared to a mother, but she is much better still than the best of mothers; for the best of mothers sometimes punishes her child when it displeases her, and even beats it: she thinks she is doing right. But the Holy Virgin does not so; she is so good that she treats us with love, and never punishes us. The heart of this good Mother is all love and mercy; she desires only to see us happy. We have only to turn to her to be heard. The Son has His justice, the Mother has nothing but her love. God has loved us so much as to die for us; but in the heart of Our Lord there is justice, which is an attribute of God; in that of the most Holy Virgin there is nothing but mercy. Her Son being ready to punish a sinner, Mary interposes, checks the sword, implores pardon for the poor criminal. "Mother, " Our Lord says to her, "I can refuse you nothing. If Hell could repent, you would obtain its pardon. " The most Holy Virgin places herself between her Son and us. The greater sinners we are, the more tenderness and compassion does she feel for us. The child that has cost its mother most tears is the dearest to her heart. Does not a mother always run to the help of the weakest and the most exposed to danger? Is not a physician in the hospital most attentive to those who are most seriously ill? The Heart of Mary is so tender towards us, that those of all the mothers in the world put together are like a piece of ice in comparison to hers. See how good the Holy Virgin is! Her great servant St. Bernard used often to say to her, "I salute thee, Mary. " One day this good Mother answered him, "I salute thee, my son Bernard. " The Ave Maria is a prayer that is never wearisome. The devotion to the Holy Virgin is delicious, sweet, nourishing. When we talk on earthly subjects or politics, we grow weary; but when we talk of the Holy Virgin, it is always new. All the saints have a great devotion to Our Lady; no grace comes from Heaven without passing through her hands. We cannot go into a house without speaking to the porter; well, the Holy Virgin is the portress of Heaven. When we have to offer anything to a great personage, we get it presented by the person he likes best, in order that the homage may be agreeable to him. So our prayers have quite a different sort of merit when they are presented by the Blessed Virgin, because she is the only creature who has never offended God. The Blessed Virgin alone has fulfilled the first Commandment - to adore God only, and love Him perfectly. She fulfilled it completely. All that the Son asks of the Father is granted Him. All that the Mother asks of the Son is in like manner granted to her. When we have handled something fragrant, our hands perfume whatever they touch: let our prayers pass through the hands of the Holy Virgin; she will perfume them. I think that at the end of the world the Blessed Virgin will be very tranquil; but while the world lasts, we drag her in all directions. . . . The Holy Virgin is like a mother who has a great many children - she is continually occupied in going from one to the other.
Vianney's chapter on Mary reminds me of De Montfort who was a spiritual giant and he tells us the most sure path to holiness is devotion to our Mother who is Queen of Heaven. To Jesus through Mary, Totus Tuus. Jesus Christ Is the Last End of Devotion to Mary" "Jesus Christ our Savior, true God and true Man, ought to be the last end of all our other devotions, else they are false and delusive. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, of all things, We labor not, as the Apostle says, except to render every man perfect in Jesus Christ; because it is in Him alone that the whole plenitude of the Divinity dwells together with all the other plenitudes of graces, virtures and perfections. It is in Him alone that we have been blessed with all spiritual benediction; and He is our only Master, who has to teach us; our only Lord on whom we ought to depend; our only Head to whom we must be united; our only Model to whom we should conform ourselves; our only Physcian who can heal us; our only Shepherd who can feed us; our only Way who can lead us; our only Truth whom we must believe; our only Life who can animate us; and our only All in all things who can satisfy us. There has been no other name given under Heaven, except the name of Jesus, by who we can be saved. God has laid no other foundation of our salvation, our perfection or our glory, than Jesus Christ. Every building which is not built on that firm rock is founded upon the moving sand, and sooner or latter infallibly will fall. Every one of the faithful who is not united to Him, as a branch to the stock of the vine, shall fall, shall wither, and shall be fit only to be cast into the fire. Outside of Him there exists nothing but error, falsehood, iniquity, futiltiy, death and damnation. But if we are in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is in us, we have no condemnation to fear. Neither the angels of Heaven not the men of earth nor the devils of Hell nor any other creature can injure us; because they cannot separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ. By Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, we can do all things; we can render all honor and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost; we can become perfect ourselves, and be to our neighbor a good odor of eternal life. (2Cor. 2:15-16)" "If, then, we establish solid devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only to establish more perfectly devotion to Jesus Christ, and to provide an easy and secure means for finding Jesus Christ. If devotion to Our Lady removed us from Jesus Christ, we should have to reject it as an illusion of the devil; but so far from this being the case, devotion to Our Lady is, on the contrary, necessary for us - as I have already shown, and will show still further hereafter - as a means of finding Jesus Christ perfectly, of loving Him tenderly, of serving Him faithfully. " "I avow, with all the Church, that Mary, being a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with His Infinite Majesty less than an atom; or rather, she is nothing at all, because only His is "HE who is" (Exod. 3:14); consequently that grand Lord, always independent and sufficient to Himself, never had, and has not now, any absolute need of the holy Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and for the manifestation of His glory. He has but to will in order to do everything. Nevertheless, I say that, things being as they are now - that is, God having willed to commence and to complete His greatest works by the most holy Virgin ever since He created her - we may well think He will not change His conduct in the eternal ages; for He is God, and He changes not, either in His sentiments or in His conduct." "The Son of God became man for our salvation; but it was in Mary and by Mary. God the Holy Ghost formed Jesus Christ in Mary; but it was only after having asked her consent by one of the first ministers of His court. God the Father communicated to Mary His fruitfulness, inasmuch as a mere creature was capable of it, in order that He might give her the power to produce His Son and all the members of His Mystical Body. God the Holy Ghost, being barren in God - that is to say, not producing another Divine Person is become fruitful by Mary, whom He has espoused. It was with her, in her, and of her that He produced His Masterpiece, which is God made Man, and that He goes on producing daily, to the end of the world, the predestinate and the members of the body of that adorable Head. This is the reason why He, the Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and inseparable spouse, in any soul, the more active and mighty He becomes in producing Jesus Christ in that soul, and that soul in Jesus Christ. It is not that we mean that our Blessed Lady gives the Holy Ghost His fruitfulness, as if He had it not Himself. For inasmuch as He is God, He has the same fruitfulness or capacity of producing as the Father and the Son; only He does not bring it into action, as He does not produce another Divine Person. But what we mean is that the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady, though He had no absolute need of her, to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ and His members - a mystery of grace unknown to even the wisest and most spiritual amoung Christians." "God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters and He named it the sea (mare). He made an assemblage of all His graces and he called it Mary(Maria). This great God has a most rich treasury in which He has laid up all that He has of beauty and splendor, of rarity and preciousness, including even His own Son: and this immense treasury is none other than Mary, whom the saints have named the Treasure of the Lord, out of whose plenitude all men are made rich." Taken from the book True Devotion to Mary
Thanks for posting The Catechism on the Blessed Virgin, I also enjoyed The Catechism on the Holy Spirit and The Catechism on the Real Presence. Vianney explains each in real simple terms, yet with a deep profoundness. I find this book to be very spiritually uplifting.
Thanks for posting about the Catechisms , MC. I had never heard of them before but will look them up in Bobby's link . Apparently the Saint sermons were quite something too; though I suspect there impact came more from simply looking at him as well as what he said. One Anglican cleryman who visited him paid him the most beautiful compliment, 'I have seen God in the face of a man'. There is a really beautiful statue of Saint John Vianney which shows him glowing like a light bulb with holiness: This is one of life's great pleasures for me when I go to Mass everyday , to look around me at the faces of the faithful all around me and so look on the faces of the saints, it being clear that some of them are very,very holy indeed. But that since they all practise their faith with devotion I shall meet them all in heaven ,shinning like stars, my brothers and sisters, God's dear saints. The thing that really hits home to me with this saintly priest was his constant overwhelming humility. He thought nothing at all about himself and everything, everything at all He refers back to God. This even when he has put all of France by its ears with his holiness. When people came from right across Europe to see him. He who was a martyr of the Confession Box and a living sacrifice for his people, his parish of Ars. His wonderful striking devotion to the Mother of God, Mary Most Holy does not in the least surprise me, for where will we ever find a Catholic Saint with no devotion to Mary? Indeed I would say the greater the Devotion to Mary; the greater the degree of Holiness. But I wonder recently if the Saints God is raising up to encourage us are not greater and greater. For instance the Cure of Ars was wonderful , but I wonder if Padre Pio was not even more wonderful? Perhaps indeed the greatest mystic the Church has ever know. Saint Francis Xavier was a marvellous Apostle but Mother Teresa of Calcutta had the world gaping at her sactity. Now if this is so what saints walk our lands at this very instant, many of them people who will never be revealed to the dawn of Paradise.
Interesting quote, because when I read Vianney's work, I feel like I am peering through a window getting a glimpse of heaven.
Yes with Saint John we see someone whose whole self is radically turned to God. This is of course a result of grace. One of the things you notice with saints such as Padre Pio , the Cure of Ars, Father Solanus Casey and others is that they were in a kind of way somtimes casually and sometimes outright by the Church itself. Fisrtly in that they regarded as unitelligent and unlearned and barely or not worthy for the prieshood itself. This must have been a source of the very greatest humiliation for them, no one likes to be esteemed as useless. But this was no accident as out of the fires of humiliation came a real humility and out of this humility came a real holiness; God became their all.... ]
