Prayer to St. Irenaeus

St. Irenaeus, Second Century Bishop of Lyon, missionary, and unapologetic apologist for the One True Church, pray for us who struggle to defend and preserve the Church and God's churches here below! Let the Son of God be praised in each and every church in the Diocese of Camden! St. Irenaeus, help us to always see the Light that shineth in the darkness, and let us not be deceived by the darkness of the world.

• "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness..." Matthew 8:12

• "And seeing the multitudes, he had compassion on them: because they were distressed, and lying like sheep that have no shepherd." Matthew 9:36

Dear St. Irenaeus, please pray for all those who are lost and in need of the guidance only the Good Shepherd may provide. Pray that we will never put ourselves in the place of God, the grave sin of Adam and Eve which caused us to be born in sin. Similarly, oh holy saint, please pray for our priests and bishops and their growth in holiness and subjection to God's will. Pray that all lukewarmness be banished from our hearts! Help us all to know and grow in our Faith, separate Truth from error, and remain on the narrow path of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.


Here are a few interesting snippets from the great saint's most important work. We recommend reading St. Irenaeus as well as the other Fathers. In this way we may be affirmed that the Church has its foundation from the earliest of times. In fact She has survived countless storms, as promised by Our Lord to St. Peter, but not without constant defense and even the shedding of blood.

From Against Heresies, Book IV:

The skill of God,  therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to Abraham, but the man who does not obtain it is the cause to himself of his own imperfection. Nor, [in like manner], does the light fail because of those who have blinded themselves; but while it remains the same as ever, those who are [thus] blinded are involved in darkness through their own fault. The light does never enslave any one by necessity; nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, therefore, who have apostatized from the light given by the Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves.

From Book V:

The devil, however, as he is the apostate angel, can only go to this length, as he did at the beginning, [namely] to deceive and lead astray the mind of man into disobeying the commandments of God, and gradually to darken the hearts of those who would endeavor to serve him, to the forgetting of the true God, but to the adoration of himself as God.

 

A HOUSE BUILT ON SAND

 

Bishop Galante has ordered me to report to St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Atlantic City.  No one will be surprised to discover that God does not want me to go there.  My vocation is in the Diocese of Camden.  When a priest is called to a life of prayer there is no turning back.  I have witnessed the attempt by Galante to lead the diocese on a course of eternal destruction.  He is a bitter man not fit to lead any organization in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.  He accepts blatant heresy from the pulpit, allowing priests to say there is no Hell, no Purgatory.  This in itself is cause enough to prove Galante's apostasy.  Those with a materialistic life are promoted while someone like me who is wholesome and athletic* is sneered at by Galante's group of apostates.  Galante wants to have power.  He is still pouting over his put down by the Church when he was named coadjutor in Dallas, which means he was to be successor to the ordinary on his retirement or death.  Neither happened soon enough for Joey, so he stamped his foot and held his breath until we got him, Providentially.  Why Providentially?  We've had to bear the cross and we have done so and will continue to do so.  Please have no fear.  The Blessed Mother of God has continued to bring us the graces we need to emerge victorious through, with, in and for Her; through, with, in, and for Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.  The Church of South Jersey is built on sand.  The Diocese of Camden will rise from the ashes.  Have no fear. Galante: Here I Am.

 

Praised be Jesus Christ,

Now and Forever

 

Father Jerome C. Romanowski

Pastor

 

*Editor's Note:  For those who may not be familiar with Fr. Romanowski or his writing style, we understand this term "wholesome and athletic" as meant to be in direct contrast to those priests who are practicing homosexuals, extremely effeminate, and/or materialistic.

Clarifying a Misleading Diocesan Administrator on Prayer

When Marilyn Vollmer tried to explain prayer to the multitudes, she said we often don't receive what we pray for. I thought and prayed about that point when I was in first grade. I later found out that we often get something better than what we pray for.* In fact, true prayer--which Marilyn Vollmer ought to study because her immortal soul depends on it--always has a primary goal to give honor and glory to God.

Our Lord teaches us that fact in the Our Father. The fact that the first words and the Name of that prayer are stressing the relationship we have with God. Any other reason for praying is secondary, far down on the list of genuine prayer. "Lifting of the mind and heart to God" says everything. No conveners or facilitators need apply.


Prayer and Our Blessed Mother

In our battle against the devil Catholics make the consecration to Our Lord through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and that is true prayer. Our Blessed Mother's prayer, which is subordinate to the Our Father but flows from it, gives all honor and glory to God. "My soul doth magnify the Lord" (St. Luke 1:46). The actions of our Blessed Mother and St. Elizabeth portray the perfection of prayer.

First, there is the salutation of our Blessed Mother that leads to the sanctification of her child, St. John, in her womb. This encounter is the model for all who hold human life sacred. When prayer is performed properly, great and majestic events take place.

Our Blessed Mother greets us in every prayer because she is always united to Our Lord and brings Our Lord to us. St. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost (St. Luke 1:41). This is what happens to us in our devotion to our Blessed Mother. Unbelievers don't allow these words to penetrate the heart. Believers never doubt nor fear the encounter with Jesus through the intercession of His Mother.


Proper Lenten Prayer and Practices

That is why our prayers enable us to prepare for Lent properly as in the Latin Ordo (calendar of the saints). We dismiss the apostates'** practices of stones in the holy water font, having the Resurrected Lord in place of the Crucified Lord, failure to practice bodily mortification (we practice penance), substituting yoga instead of the Stations of the Cross, and ignoring the law of abstinence on Fridays. The apostates in the Church like to tell us how they enjoyed their vacations. There aren't any vacations in Hell.***


Holy Examples are No Accident: They are God's Grace!

Sr.Mary Celine of the Felician Sisters of Lodi taught us the above in the seventh grade. We knew of that material on prayer before that, but Sr. Mary Celine stood out by living that prayer in a cheerful way. It was a grace for me to find out that Sr. Mary Celine often visited a family at St. Mary's, Malaga long before I came here. Those graces never stop coming to our Shrine Parish!

Praised be Jesus Christ,
Now and Forever!
Father Jerome C. Romanowski, Pastor


* From the Editor: God answers all prayers of his children! But the problem of the current diocesan administration is something we've long known at Savestmarys: they have no hope.
 

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.... We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere 'to the end' and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1817-1821)

See also the following texts, all of which show how those people currently running the diocese into the ground lack are confusing the faithful with their words:

• John 16: 23-24: Amen, amen I say to you: if you ask the Father any thing in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto you have not asked any thing in my name. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full.

• Mark 11: 21-23: And Peter remembering, said to him: Rabbi, behold the fig tree, which thou didst curse, is withered away. And Jesus answering, saith to them: Have the faith of God. Amen I say to you, that whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed and be cast into the sea, and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe, that whatsoever he saith shall be done; it shall be done unto him. Therefore I say unto you, all things, whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive; and they shall come unto you.

• Matthew 21: 18-22: And in the morning, returning into the city, he was hungry. And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, he came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only, and he saith to it: May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And immediately the fig tree withered away. And the disciples seeing it wondered, saying: How is it presently withered away? And Jesus answering, said to them: Amen, I say to you, if you shall have faith, and stagger not, not only this of the fig tree shall you do, but also if you shall say to this mountain, Take up and cast thyself into the sea, it shall be done. And in all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.

• Interestingly, see James 4:1-5, the section summarized as, "The evils that flow from yielding to concupiscence and being friends to this world." Perhaps this is why Ms. Volmer does not receive that for which she purports to pray.
  

  From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupiscences, which war in your members? You covet, and have not: you kill, and envy, and can not obtain. You contend and war, and you have not, because you ask not. You ask, and receive not; because you ask amiss: that you may consume it on your concupiscences. Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture saith in vain: To envy doth the spirit covet which dwelleth in you.

• Again, if we keep his commandments. See 1John 3:21-22: Dearly beloved, if our heart do not reprehend us, we have confidence towards God: And whatsoever we shall ask, we shall receive of him: because we keep his commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in his sight.

• Matthew 7: 6-10: Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turning upon you, they tear you. Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? Or if he shall ask him a fish, will he reach him a serpent?

• Luke 11: 9-13: And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?

**Footnote from Father Romanowski: An apostate is one who denounces the teachings of the Catholic Church and instead malpractices a denomination (that is, a cult).

***Emphasis above from the Editor.