Non-Catholics, as a rule are not familiar with the degrading teachings which Luther expounded in his infamous work on "Slave Will."  They have never been given an opportunity to study this volume at first hand and find out for themselves the destructive principles therein advocated.  Their ignorance of the facts has been taken advantage of, and they have been made to believe that their leader, who declared man's will to be a "slave will" was the real and only one who promoted liberty in the sixteenth century, by breaking the fetters of religious bondage and securing for all perfect freedom of conscience and thought.  This view has been repeated so often by the maligners of truth that they have come to imagine that as soon as the people of Europe got the Bible - Luther's Bible, mistranslated, changed, and altered - they abandoned the Mother Church, rushed into the new man-made form of religion of their own accord, and at once established civil and religious liberty for everybody.  The story is fascinating .  It tells against Rome, and therefore thousands upon thousands have been deceived into giving it credence.  What, however, is the hard, cold, plain truth in this case?

The Facts of Luther

 

St. Ignatius of Loyola trampling on the heretic Martin Luther with the power of the Holy Eucharist. (Church of St. Nicholas, Prague)

"When you become acquainted with his (Luther's) horrible teaching, you will not wonder that to him the word "liberty", which excites a thrill and stirs the deepest feelings of the soul, had little or no significance.

The truth is that Luther rarely spoke or wrote of liberty in the sense in which we know and realize the God given boon.  It is a well known fact of history that he did not favor that freedom of thought which later became the vogue among his progeny.  Liberty, as he understood the word was solely for himself, but not for others.  With him it was a personal matter .  All men were free to differ with the Pope, to reject his teaching, to curse him to the lowest depths, were even invited and encouraged to slay him like a wolf or robber, and wash their hands in his blood and that of his cardinals  and other adherents, but they must not dare to differ from Martin Luther."

The Facts of Luther

 This book was written in 1916 talking about events that happened 500 years ago!  There is nothing new under the sun!!

"Indeed there is today little or no regard for legitimate authority, either in the home or in organized society.  The authority entrusted to the head of the family is almost entirely discarded.  The person of the chief magistrate of city, state or nation is treated with disrespect, and  the tribunal of justice is hailed with contempt.  Majesty is no longer attached to law.  This denial of authority has demoralized all conception of respect for superiors, for property rights, and for individual liberty; and the very foundation stones of the national structure are being moved one by one, so that the structure itself is in danger of tottering and falling asunder.  The general aversion to the guidance of legitimate and divinely established law, which Luther's loose and immoral teachings introduced into the world and which have come down to our day, must be removed if domestic happiness and national prosperity would bless the land, its homes and its people. " 

The Facts about Luther

Where it all started:

 "When in this age of ours when revolution walks like a destroying angel among the nations of the earth and breathes death from its nostrils among the peaceful inhabitants thereof; when the rulers upon their thrones are unsafe; when in this very land of liberty, calling itself Protestant, a Booth strikes down the most peaceful of men, the kindly Lincoln; a Guiteau destroys the useful life of a Garfield; when at the dawn of the twentieth century a ruler chosen by his fellow citizens is murdered by the hands of the assassin Czolgosz while enjoying the quiet hospitality of a sovereign state; and when you ask for the reason that produced such murderous outrages, we bid you turn to Luther and his rebellious teachings announced and embodied in the work falsely styled "Reformation"  producing the result of a deformation. Luther is its father, the sixteenth century its cradle, and autocracy its protector and high priest."

The Facts about Luther

 

Make it the fixed purpose of your life to make all others happy as far as it is in your power, and so (for that will be necessary) to put self out of view altogether.  This then, ought to be the first thought on awaking:  "Dear Mother, for thy honor I will take care that everybody who speaks to me today shall go away happier".  This thought  is to be the first thought in your examen at night:  "How many have I failed to make happy today."

 

Go out into the world with your heart full of gentleness and pity, and you shall find the response of kindliness from others; you will not only protect yourself from being hardened, but you will draw out the gentler side of others.

Father Maturin

 

Giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light:  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, In whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins; Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature: For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and in Him.  And He is before all, and by Him all things consist.  And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He may hold the primacy: Because in Him, it hath well pleased the Father, that all fulness should dwell;  And through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, making peace through the blood of His cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven.

Colossians 1:12-20