Texts chosen from the writings and teachings of the Father Theodossios Maria of the Cross
Landmarks
I. The search for stable landmarks which are visible from afar at all times is all the more necessary and urgent as the Night is deep and the way towards Truth is strewn with obstacles which very often rise up from the abyss.
Man alone has never been able to either find or invent such landmarks which guarantee the way towards Truth. The Church of Christ within her depths involves intrinsic landmarks which continually spring from her own inimitable identity of eternal doctrine and life.
To discern the real intrinsic landmarks which guarantee the way, means to discern the real essence, the real identity and the real mission of the Church of Christ, in the face of the very confused image of the world and of things of the Church in the world.
II. These landmarks which spring from the real identity of the Church, constitute criteria in the depths of the Understanding and the Heart. These are the criteria of high objectivity with which one can perceive the most intimate and secret reality of the sacred Poem of Creation; and at the same time the nature and enormity of Evil and suffering in the world and in history can be perceived as well as the Mystery of love and suffering of the Redeemer.
And then from the midst of this stream of facts, ideas, doctrines and blood of history, norms of understanding and life rise up, placed by the Redeemer as constituent elements of his Church.
At times the search for these criteria of high and holy objectivity is considered as useless. For the image of the world and often that of the Church are such that all reference to eternal criteria is considered chimeric. But the reality of these criteria does not depend upon man's intelligence; and even the possibility of recognizing them does not depend upon the simple will of man.
III. Since the Beginning Christ's message and doctrine have been contested or falsified, and that not only by the declared enemies of the Church, but from her own interior and in her name. But the Church has always conserved, borne and will bear the Message of Christ until the end of time.
That has been and is possible because those norms of knowledge and of life, those objective and holy criteria carne forth from the Lord's Being and at the same time are implanted by Him in the Heart of the Church.
If it were not so, there would be no possibility for man to truly escape what is relative in history and from the mirage of his own intellectual constructions.
IV. It has happened that in times of recrudescence of the critical and independant spirit, the Message of Christ has become undiscernible and at times deeply altered in the midst of the vast, agitated sea of an interminable philosophical and theological discourse. It is an endless, multiform and polyvalent analytical discourse. But in the depths of the Church suffering and always fought against from within as well as from without, the landmarks, the norms of knowledge and of life, the eternal criteria of holy objectivity used to guide the way; they handed down Christ's initial doctrine and warmed the hearts and minds of men of true good will with that supernatural and inimitable warmth and delicacy of true Love.
In this century a recrudescence of the endless discourse of critical analysis and limitless polyvalence has invaded the Church with force and perseverance, so as to once again render Christ's Doctrine and Message undiscernible and also gravely falsified.
V. A sign which testifies in an incontestable way to the reality of this recrudescence is the ensemble of the texts of Vatican Council II and that manifold unrestrained theological discourse which has taken possession of the fact of the Council and of the texts of the Council and thereby the conscience of a great number of the baptized.
The texts of the Council bear witness to a great combat between light and darkness, bear witness to the holiness of the Heart of the Church and of the protection of the Holy Spirit. These texts are, as is the Body of Christ, full of wounds, holiness and eternal victory.
This unrestrained discourse, whether it links up to the past and attacks the Council, whether it preaches a perpetual renewal and refers wrongly to the Council, has wounded the Body of Christ and wounds it still more.
The fact, the texts and the visible and secret unfolding of the Council are an image of the whole mystery of the Mystical Body of Christ: perpetual battle of darkness to invade the Church, and the Heart of the Church which resists, and preserves the light which, in the middle of the night of the world, she transmits to men, to men of good will.
The Council in its ensemble is the living image of the Redeemer crucified in accordance with the will of the high priests and blind sects; the image of Christ Jesus, vanquisher of death and who left in the Heart and Blood of the Church, the deposit of eternal life, his identity, his Doctrine and his Message of hope in eternal life.
VI. It is from this living deposit that arise, either in the depths or in the heights, but always from the heart of the Church, the norms of knowledge and life established by the Lord, in which are rooted the eternal criteria that constitute, throughout the centuries, the golden Rule of the doctrine of the Church.
(Excerpt from the book "The Golden Rule of the Doctrine of the Church")
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