An Unparalleled Offense to God
In order to understand the importance of Reparation to the Holy Face, it is necessary to be convinced of the unparalleled offense of blasphemy and the way in which it extends to include all first three commandments.
The second commandment forbids man to blaspheme by taking the Name of Our Lord in vain. Our Lord made Sister St. Pierre understand “that the intelligence of man cannot conceive of the heinousness of the affronts offered God by the sin of blasphemy.” In addition, Sister St. Pierre understood through the revelations that the non-observance of the Lord’s Day is similarly an outrage committed against the sovereignty of God, and an injury done to the sanctification of his Holy Name, a crime…identical with that of blasphemy: in fact, when the day is no longer sanctified by the suspension of labor [and the worship of God], the Holy Name of the Lord is not adored, blessed, known or glorified as it should be.[1]
Likewise, if one contradicts the first commandment—by upholding another as God, or in effect worshiping some object or aspiration as God, or by believing that there is no God—one is also blaspheming by taking from the Name of God the praise and glory due to it. Logically, the first three commandments, which outline right behavior toward God, are intrinsically connected in that blasphemy in all its forms, which is the antithesis of the proper fear and respect due Our Lord and His Name.
Venerable Dupont, observing nineteenth century France, wrote about the then newly universal, common-place and contagious character of these sins, which lead to intemperance and increased immorality:
Have the workshops been closed? Has manual labor been suspended on the Lord’s Day? Show me the street or the thoroughfare of the city in which the noise of commerce has for one instant been interrupted! Everywhere the same clamor resounds, the same agitation, the same commotion sways the multitude as on weekdays. The children of men pursue their avocations with the same ardor as on the days assigned to labor. Here we behold them erecting stupendous edifices which the hand of God refuses to bless; there, exposing the produce of their industry, pursuing their speculations, their negotiations, their insatiable craving for wealth, for power, for honor.
Look at our villages, pass on to our hamlets, what do we behold? The forgetfulness of God which necessarily follows in the train of profanation, and the countless other disorders, none the less deplorable. Yet the most diabolical of all these outrages committed against the majesty of God, is the shameful desecration of the Sundays and holydays: one part of the day is consecrated to business; the other, to pleasure; forbidden labor being always followed by disorderly pleasure. Servile occupation is succeeded by intemperance and immorality.[2]
The magnitude of these iniquities is likewise and again clearly indicated in the revelations of Our Lord to Sister St. Pierre:
The earth is covered with crime! The sins against the first three commandments have provoked the wrath of my Father; the Holy Name of God blasphemed, and the profanation of the Lord’s Day fill to overflowing the measure of iniquity; this sin has mounted even to the throne of the Most High, and has aroused [H]is wrath, which will burst forth over mankind in an impetuous torrent, if [H]is justice be not appeased.[3]
Satan is going to the heart of the matter by inducing us to contradict the first three Commandments. Blasphemy, after all, is the hallmark of Satan’s own deadly sin: pride.
Like all sin, blasphemy harms the sinner, for as Sister St. Pierre understood from Our Lord,
Blasphemy and the violation of the Lord’s Day are sins which attack God directly, in violation of the first three commandments; they confer no benefit on man but are sadly prejudicial alike to his temporal and spiritual happiness. They are diabolical in character: the unhappy transgressor labors not for himself but for the devil, who not only degrades, but enslaves his victim.[4]
Power of the Use of Dominus, the Lord’s Name, in Exorcisms
Tragic evidence of both the diabolical character of blasphemy and the enslavement of Satan is evident in the most meticulously documented exorcism to date in the United States, which was the basis of the 1973 movie The Exorcist. The exorcist priest and his assistant suffered unspeakable insults, blasphemies, filthy language and physical violence from a possessed boy[5] over a period of weeks. The devils left only when, instead of hearing guttural voices of demons coming from the boy, those surrounding the boy heard that of St. Michael, demanding that the evil spirits leave the body in the name of Dominus [the Lord]. The spirits had previously communicated that there was only one word which would drive them out and that the boy would never be allowed to say it.[6] Here we are reminded of the scripture passage, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”[7] This terrifying phenomenon indicates both the power of the Name of God properly reverenced and the danger of its antithesis, blasphemy. (If blasphemy were not an emblem of godlessness, why would Satan use it?) Unaware though we choose to be, sins of blasphemy are the mark of Satan’s enslavement, producing their deadly effect upon us.
The Deadliest Sin
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, in fact, describes blasphemy as “the deadliest of all sins and as ordinarily unpardonable, for it is a crime of the highest magnitude that can be committed against the Divinity in that it attacks God openly and directly….Blasphemy is the cause of maledictions on…earth.”[8] Blasphemy leads to death of soul. Our Lord related as much to Sister St. Pierre: “By blasphemy, the sinner outrages [H]im to [H]is face, attacks [H]im openly, and pronounces upon himself his own judgment and condemnation.”[11] Our culture is somehow ignorant of what the epochs before us have understood regarding the right order of things: There is no life of the soul without proper fear of God, and there is no proper fear of God without proper humility before Him in adhering to His commands, the foremost being the first three.
[1] Ibid., 183.
[2]Sister Mary St. Peter, Life of Sister Mary St. Peter, ed. M. L’Abbe Janvier (France, 1884), 193-4. [double check]
[3] Ibid., 158-9.
[4] Sister Mary St. Peter, Life of Sister Mary St. Peter, ed. M. L’Abbe Janvier (France, 1884), 184.
[5] The real-life case of exorcism involved a boy, who was, however, portrayed as a girl in the movie.
[6] Norman Fulerson. “This is How Saint Michael Cast Out Satan From Robbie Mannheim.” Return to Order (March 3, 2019). www.returntoorder.org/2019/03/this-is-how-saint-michael-cast-out-satan-from-robbie-mannheim/ (accessed March 7, 2019).
[7] Acts 2:21.
[8] Ibid., 204. This was quoted from Tanney’s Life of St. Alphonsus V. IV. ch. XV. [Direct citation?]
[9] John Laux. Introduction to the Bible. (Charlotte: Saint Benedict Press, 1990), 63.
[10] Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, Volume I, ed. Paul A. Boer, Sr. (Veritatis Splendor Publications, 2012), 116.
[11] Sister Mary St. Peter, Life of Sister Mary St. Peter, ed. M. L’Abbe Janvier (France, 1884), 127.
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