- Feb 5, 2002
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The modern world has made a mockery of penance and mortification. One of the direct results of the Protestant Reformation was the implicit rejection of an incarnational faith, with notions of “faith alone,” and the explicit rejection of indulgences. The skeptic, or the overly spiritualized Protestant, cannot fathom earthly actions, in the form of monetary sacrifice or physical mortification, being acceptable offerings to the Father in remission for the suffering souls in purgatory.
The Enlightenment followed, further ingratiating the modern Christian with enlightened reason in place of medievalism’s blind faith; one should think their way to truth rather than wallow in the muck of self-denial. “Tame the mind rather than tame the body!” the heresy of modernism would say, or has said.
Dear Parent, understand that the modern American culture in which you have been raised is like warm water, and you are the frog. With every passing decade, the temperature has been turned up. Our nation, with many blessings indeed, was founded by men of the Enlightenment. They were largely anti-Catholic rationalists with smidgens of Christian faith remaining here and there. It was the author of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, who committed the blasphemous, idolatrous mortal crime of publishing The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, commonly known as the Jefferson Bible. This Enlightenment scoundrel, whom we scandalously christen as a Founding Father, removed all signs of the miraculous and supernatural in order to promote Jesus as a wise man—a man of whom the Enlightenment would be proud—rather than as the Savior who died for His dainty, self-indulgent self. This, Good Parent, is the America in which you live.
And thus, you should not be surprised that the progeny of such men reject all notions of a Christianity that is corporeal, physical, and bloody.
Continued below.
Penance and Mortification - TAN Direction
The Enlightenment followed, further ingratiating the modern Christian with enlightened reason in place of medievalism’s blind faith; one should think their way to truth rather than wallow in the muck of self-denial. “Tame the mind rather than tame the body!” the heresy of modernism would say, or has said.
Dear Parent, understand that the modern American culture in which you have been raised is like warm water, and you are the frog. With every passing decade, the temperature has been turned up. Our nation, with many blessings indeed, was founded by men of the Enlightenment. They were largely anti-Catholic rationalists with smidgens of Christian faith remaining here and there. It was the author of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, who committed the blasphemous, idolatrous mortal crime of publishing The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, commonly known as the Jefferson Bible. This Enlightenment scoundrel, whom we scandalously christen as a Founding Father, removed all signs of the miraculous and supernatural in order to promote Jesus as a wise man—a man of whom the Enlightenment would be proud—rather than as the Savior who died for His dainty, self-indulgent self. This, Good Parent, is the America in which you live.
And thus, you should not be surprised that the progeny of such men reject all notions of a Christianity that is corporeal, physical, and bloody.
Continued below.
Penance and Mortification - TAN Direction
