Against the Grain
<img class="wp-image-8506 size-medium alignleft" src="https://exsurgedomine.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/712ONChEL._SL1500_-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" /><h4>Against the grain.</h4><p><span><b>Heroic Catholics Through the Centuries</b></span></p><strong>Doug Grane</strong> (author)<strong>Carlo Maria Viganò</strong> (preface)Order online: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-Catholics-Through%2520Centuries/dp/1737252295">link</a><p><span>This is a book about friendship: the friendship of the Saints with God, the friendship of the Saints with each other, and with us. A friendship based on charity, which is the theological virtue that leads us to love God and our neighbor for love of Him. On the basis of this virtue rooted in the virtue of Faith because it has as its object God himself who “is charity” (1 Jn 4:8) and Truth (Jn 14:6), all the baptized are united in a supernatural bond that finds in the Most Holy Trinity its origin, its strength and its goal. For this reason, separating Charity from Faith is a hellish and essentially anti-Trinitarian work.</span></p><p><span> </span></p><p><span>The Saints that are mentioned in this book, and all the Saints in general, constitute an exemplary model of how we must be, following the commandment of Our Lord: “<i>Estote ergo vos perfecti, sicut et Pater vester caelestis perfectus est</i>” (Mt 5:48). Our “having to be” Saints, fighting the evil inclination that we carry within us as a consequence of original sin, and trying to be docile to divine Grace, cannot be considered just a precept, but rather a necessity, a coherent response to our having been redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, as a consequence of that love he showed for us by sacrificing himself on the Cross. If human love is that natural instinct that moves us towards the good which is divine love, namely, Charity; our soul is led supernaturally towards the Supreme Good which is God, and consequently we are also led towards the saints who participate with us in that attraction towards Him.</span></p><p><span> </span></p><p><span>We can understand that even human friendship, with the benefit of hindsight, binds us to someone whose talents we admire, and who we think can help us improve, while we are encouraged, in our turn, to behave well in order to be an example to them. If this friendship is established between us and the Saints whom the Church indicates to us as a model to follow, to the point that the New Testament calls the baptized “saints” (Eph 1:1), we find the perfection to which we are called is fulfilled in them, we draw comfort from them precisely because we feel an affinity for the way they lived, the profession they had, their daily sufferings, their struggle against the world, the flesh and the devil. Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors of the Faith, Virgins and Widows are united in showing us how, ultimately, despite our weaknesses, that it is the Lord who makes us saints, and who takes pleasure in pouring out His gifts upon us and making the talents He gives bear fruit. It is for us that the Blessed Virgin sings in the Magnificat: “<i>Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est</i>” .</span></p><p><span> </span></p><p><span>We too, even though we are poor sinners, are called to great things: we must not think that the heroism of the virtues that have led our brothers and sisters in the Faith to be celebrated with public honors by Holy Church is the prerogative of just a few, a privilege to which we may not aspire, or even worse, a condition to be deplored because it is no longer in keeping with the mentality of our time. Because it was precisely in having lived for future glory that the saints were able to heroically live in this <i>vale of tears</i>; it was their desire to gain the crown that enabled them to try their hand at the race, and to win it. A struggle, or competition, a “<i>certamen</i>”, as the Apostle calls it<i>: “Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi”</i> (Eph 1:4). The first, indispensable virtue of the Saints, and therefore also of those who want to emulate them, is humility: “<i>deposuit potentes de Sede, et exaltavit humiles”</i> (Lk 1:52).</span></p><p><span> </span></p><p><span>In this his time of great crisis for the Church, and for the whole of humanity, in which we see the gates of the underworld unleashed for the establishment of the kingdom of the Antichrist, we must see an even greater urgency in the call to holiness, which begins with the life of grace through prayer, the frequent reception of the Sacraments, and the faithful and courageous keeping of the <i>depositum fidei </i>, which is today threatened by the very leaders of the Hierarchy. We invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary as <i>Regina Sanctorum omnium</i> <i>, </i>to make us worthy of the promises of Christ and, under the protection of Her mantle, to accompany us in this earthly pilgrimage to our heavenly home, so that we may meet, in blessed eternity, our friends who intercede for us before the throne of the Lamb.</span></p> <p><span>+ Carlo Maria Viganò,</span> <span><i>Archbishop</i></span></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span>May 28, 2021</span><span><i>Feria Sexta Quatuor Temporum Pentecostes</i></span></p>
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