How to Find Faith Even When You Don't Believe

Chapter 14

Here is the beginning of a step-by-step stairway to heaven. No need to suspend your incredulity. Yes, you heard right. Even the non-believer can do this. Just follow instructions.

You don't need faith to pray, only desire. Do you desire heaven and fear hell? Then follow me.

"To him that overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life...he that shall overcome shall not be hurt by the second death...to him that overcomes I will give the hidden manna."

Go into a quiet room or garden alcove, kneel upright, eyes closed, breathing slowly, uttering not a word for the few seconds it will take the invisible energies to distract you to your feet. Then just say "Begone Satan!" and kneel again. Primordial prayer is good without words. Nature and the Spirit will do your groaning and weeping for you.

"But as many as received him" (that's Step One, the seed of hope and beginnings of faith) "he gave them power to be made sons of God" (that's Step Two, the budding of supernatural charity unto the fruiting of sanctifying life.)

To become a child of God you need to exercise that power called Grace to unite with the only means of bringing Heaven down to Earth and God into your soul in actual not merely sentimental Communion.

Hear, O Israel, the Church is one, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Again, remember, if you've lost faith, there is still hope. That's what hope is for.

For protection wear a Miraculous Medal and say the prayer known as the Memorare [pronounced mem-eh-RAH-ray] of St.Bernard. This medal turned a rich Jewish banker by the name of Alphonse Ratisbon into a recognized saint of the Church.

Here is the Memorare:

Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known in any age that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother, to you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. Despise not my petitions, O Mother of the Word Incarnate, but in your clemency hear and answer me. Amen.

If you persevere, you will be granted an interior perception and even a small private miracle that will prove to your satisfaction Jesus and Mary live, that they hear you, know you, love you, and desire your salvation.

For no greater love has any man than this, that he lay down his life for you--and how!

Let not your response when it comes be cheap. Get a copy of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and try not to avert your eyes from all of it. Again, the secret is perseverence. It gets heavy but just keep going. Turn the sound off and mix and match with the soundtrack of The Mission or The Third Miracle's music by Jan Kaczmarek.

The Miraculous Medal could be the key to gain entry to heaven's consolations. It is said that whoever wears it and says the Memorare prayer for nine days receives personal miracles to ease the mental pain and emotional burden of a lifetime and bring peace of heart.

From Bob Dylan's 1966 album Absolutely Sweet Marie, "to live outside the law you must be honest." Love in other words transcends all. When faith and hope are no more, there remains the greater love.

Traditionally grace to love comes from the rite entered into with humility and the dependency of a trusting child. While holiness is difficult, "with God no word shall be impossible." The rite restores grace. This is more clearly seen in the older manuscript of St.Matthew Gospel which stated: "Give us this day our supernatural bread"--in the Greek "arton epiousion." The Eucharist is supernatural bread.

Capacity to love depends on supernatural grace and that in turn depends on desire for eternal truth. St.Paul said the chief characteristic of "them that are perishing" is that "they receive not the love of truth that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying." The belly in other words takes over from the head, and the heart is set on short-lived earthly pleasures.

But now that the Church and the rite called the Sacrament of Love have ben destroyed, prayer and self-sacrifice is all there is to fall back on.

Millionaire Paves ChildLike Way to God

The conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne in 1842 is remarkable testimony to the power of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to God's love for the Jewish people and his patient desire to see them accept him as their Lord and Saviour and King. Alphonse was a wealthy businessman, an agnostic and a Jew, crippled by guilt feelings, as well as anger, which is the projection of guilt, a psychological syndrome in which people play the aggrieved and blameless victim while accusing others of what they themselves do. Alphonse not only blamed the Catholic Church and Jesus for the suffering of the Jewish people but also for a family tragedy. As a boy his older brother Théodore had converted to Catholicism and had been even ordained a priest. The traitor and apostate had been excommunicated from the family in a ritual malediction by his father. Apart from this peccadillo, Alphonse was not a bad man.

Like all conversions, the exception being that of St Paul, his conversion was a gradual process. He started getting religious feelings when his fiancée admitting to believing in the immortality of the soul felt a desire to pray. Subsequently he walked into a church during Mass. He hadn't planned doing so. It was as if he were a child and some force, his guardian angel, had put him in a daze.

Overcome by the otherworldly ambience of the place, he started to pray. Then another miracle occurred. He had an interior locution, a distinct voice not unlike those that schizophrenics experience, from just above and behind him, except this was no fallen spirit but his guardian angel. The voice said: "Your prayer has been answered."

A few days later Alphonse Ratisbonne is visiting a business acquaintance in Rome, a baron and a staunch Catholic. As they are walking along, his friend sets before him a challenge. "Since you abhor superstition and espouse such liberal views, would you consider submitting to a simple test to prove you are really as free from the power of superstition as you say you are?" "What test?" "To wear something that I am going to give you. It's a medal of the Holy Virgin." He shows Alphonse the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces attached to a cord. "It appears quite ridiculous to you, no doubt. But, as for me, I attach great importance to it." Alphonse is flabbergasted. He can scarcely believe the impertinence. As a man of the world, though, he doesn't want to seem to be making too much out of a silly trifle. So he consents, breezily quoting a line from The Tales of Hoffman, "If it does me no good, at least it will do me no harm." But then his friend ventures further into the deep. "I dare you also to say the prayer that goes with it, the Memorare of St.Bernard, and say it nine days in succession while wearing the medal." This is too much! "Laissons ces sottises!" exclaims Alphonse. "Let's stop this foolishness!" The mention of St.Bernard has reminded him of his brother, Monsieur l' Abbe Théodore Ratisbonne, who was the author of a biography of the Cistercian abbot. Anything that reminds Alphonse of his older brother arouses his rage. The baron eyes his prey, wriggling on the hook of his own conflicted emotions. Suppressing a smile, he delivers the ultimatum or coup de grace. If Alphonse refuses to pray this short prayer, he insists, he'll consider the whole test null and void, implying Alphonse is just as superstitious and afraid of that "carpenter from Nazareth" as the next man.

Alphonse consents, and at the Baron's behest agrees to copy out the Memorare.

"Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, sought your help or implored your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother. To you do I come, before you do I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my prayers but in your clemency hear and answer them. Amen."

Alphonse pockets the Miraculous medal and the note with the prayer scrawled on it, and leaves, pretending to be greatly amused by the whole absurd episode. Later that night, however, when he mechanically copies out the prayer, something happens. He can't get the words of the Memorare out of his mind. They haunt him, he recounted later, like an annoying tune one can't dislodge from one's head. Over and over again, with mounting irritation, he murmurs this obtrusive prayer of St.Bernard.

A few days later he and his friend are visiting Rome. The Baron attends to some business with the pastor of the Church of Sant' Andrea delle Fratte. "To kill the time" Alphonse like the other tourists goes sightseeing inside the church. But when the Baron comes out of his meeting and goes looking for his friend, he can't find him.

Assuming he has impatiently gone on ahead without him, the Baron goes in to pay his respect to the Lord of the Tabernacle. It is there that he finds his friend, prostrate at the foot of a statue of Our Lady.

Is the Miraculous Medal a magic charm? If you're a non-believer, but you wouldn't mind going to heaven all the same, then try it for yourself and see. Caveat emptor! Think carefully before you attempt this. For you may never be the same again.

Learning of Ratisbonne's conversion by means of the Miraculous Medal was one of the things that inspired St.Maximilian Kolbe to found the Militia Immaculata. Fr Alberto Arzilli, a fellow Franciscan friar, wrote that it was on the day of the 75th anniversary of the apparition of our Lady to Alphonse Ratisbonne that Fr Maximilian became convinced of what he had to do regarding the founding of the new order. The inspiration came to him during a morning meditation by the Father Rector. Father Ignudi told the story of Ratisbonne's miraculous conversion. "With a face beaming and bubbling with joy at the power of our Lady shown in the conversion of Ratisbonne, Friar Max spoke to me of his inspiration. Smiling, he told me we had to crush the Devil and all heresies, and especially the error of Masonry."

With what divine irony would Fr Max later be condemned to die of starvation in Auschwitz after offering to gratuitously and vicariously take the place of a man with a family of young children?

Today the increasing number of cases of Jewish men and women converting to Christ is one of the signs of the times. St.Paul in chapters 10, 11 and 12 of the Book of Romans sternly warns the Roman church not to gloat over the fate of the Jews. For just as one man's loss is another man's gain, so also what goes round comes round, and the Gentiles, St.Paul prophesied, would lose the faith, and the church in the last days would become again the Church of Mount Sion, made up predominantly of Jewish Catholics--the Jewish Church of the escaton. The Lord God who in the form of Jesus appeared to Abram does not forget his people. God said that lukewarm Sunday Christians of the last days he will spit out of his mouth, and that he prefers those who hate him because they feel a crushing psychological weight. Woe to the so-called "saved" in their ungracious complacency and stupid presumption. Joy to the afraid who feel themselves cursed because their sins have murdered God. St.Paul held in withering contempt the masses of lukewarm Gentiles--in effect the tribal Catholics and the members of the various sects--who believed only because their father and mother believed, but who are oblivious to the universal and personal implications of the crime of the Cross in which every human being is a spiritual accomplice. "He who thinks he can stand let him beware lest he fall." Jesus will save only those deeply troubled by the Cross. "Work out your salvation in fear and trembling," St.Paul said.

Keyword-search the internet using the words: Miraculous Conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne. A more in-depth account is available in a book written by another Hebrew Catholic, Roy Schoeman, Salvation Is From The Jews.

Prophecy of St.Bernadette
In 1997 a letter that the seer of Lourdes St.Bernadette had written to the Pope in 1879 was found hidden away in the Vatican Library's archives. The Mother of God had given her five prophecies. (1) The first prophecy was about the development of the sanctuary of Lourdes as a place of pilgrimage and healing. (2) The second announced a series of scientific discoveries including electrical energy, the incandescent light-bulb, the gramophone and other applicances. (3) The third message predicted the rise of Hitler and the Nazis and a war involving most nations. (4) The efforts of men to fly in space was announced in the fourth prophecy. Around the 1970s the Americans would land a man on the moon. (5) The only as yet unfulfilled prophecy. "His Holiness, the Blessed Virgin told me that at the end of the 20th century will also end the era of science. A new era of faith will start on the whole Earth. The proof will be made that it is God who created the world and man. It will be the beginning of the end of science in which man will no longer believe. Millions of humans will turn to Christ and the power of the Church will be greater than ever. The reason for many men to turn away from scientists will be the snobbish attitude of the doctors workign towards the realisation of a creature issued of a cross bteween man and animal. Men will feel in the bottom of their heart that it is the most unjustifiable thing. On the first stage, we will not be able to counterfeit the creation of these monsters, but scientists will finally be chased as we chase a horde of wolves. On the eve of the year 2000, we will assist in a clash between the followers of Mohammed and those of Christian nations. A terrible battle will take place in which 5,650,451 soldiers will lose their lives, and a very destructive bomb will be launched on a city in Persia. But at the end it is the sign of the Cross which will conquer and all Muslims will convert to Christianity. This will be followed by a century of peace and happiness for all nations will drop their weapons. A great richness will follow. The Lord will spread His blessing on believers. Throughout the earth there will no longer be any family living in poverty and suffering from hunger. One one man out of ten God will give the power to heal sickness of those who call for help. After these miracles we will hear shouts of joy of a great number. The 21st century will be called The Second Golden Era of Humanity.

The Secret of Christian Meditation by Merry Del Val
I am going to reveal to you a secret of sanctity and happiness; every day during five minutes, keep your imagination quiet, shut your eyes to all the things of sense and close your ears to all the sounds of Earth, so as to be able to withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptized soul which is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, speaking there to that Holy Spirit, saying, "O Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore Thee; enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me; tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything that Thou shalt ask of me and to accept all that Thou permittest to happen to me, only show me what is Thy will." If you do this, your life will pass happily and serenely, consolation will abound even in the midst of troubles, for grace will be given in proportion to the trial as well as strength to bear it; bringing you to the gates of paradise full of merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity.

The Secret by Leon Bloy
Reminding Jesus of my extreme destitution, I told him, "Give me what is in your hand, open your hand." He opened his hand and I saw that it was pierced. The only true devotion is pity for Jesus, which is to say, the compassion of Mary. One must pray. Everything else is useless and stupid. For he who prays much, there can be no despair nor bitter grief. I am telling this to you, and I have the right to do so, and I speak with true authority. You must pray simply, naively, yet with a powerful will. The main thing is to pray for a long time, patiently, without yielding to disgust, nor to fatigue, until emotion arises, and you feel as if you had a firebrand in your heart. Then you may go in peace and face any tribulation.

"To him that overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life...he that shall overcome shall not be hurt by the second death...to him that overcomes I will give the hidden manna."