I prayed for guidance, figuring the result would be tailored to exactly what I was seeking: A sense of tradition, accurate language, deeper instruction, and a history of being challenged or suppressed. We know how the adversaries of truth work by now.
What I found was the original Douay Old Testament of 1610 and the Rheims New Testament of 1582. Note the New Testament predates the King James.
Also note that neither of these are what is sold as the 'Douay-Rheims' nowadays, which either date from a 1750 revision to fall more in line with the King James or an 1899 American revision with different footnotes again.
It's a direct formal equivalent translation of the Latin Vulgate, which means occasionally-clunky rather than 'pretty' language, but it means exactly what was said.
It was written during the Reformation, and directly-challenges the heresies emerging in Germany, with copious margin notes, extended footnotes after each chapter and tables at the back of the book highlighting the repeating themes Jesus spoke of. Why the New Teachings are Heretical is clearly-explained, and it clearly-states where passages are assigned readings according to the church calendar.
It's a bible you could rebuild the Traditional Catholic Church with, particularly as the current Roman Catholic Church is speaking of forbidding the Latin Mass from being practiced, as to be expected from those we warned by Pope Leo XIII and Our Lady of Fatima would subvert the church for Satan during the 20th Century for 100 years, as Russia's evil [socialism] 'spreads throughout the world'.
Anyway, if you owned this bible in England, you were put to death up until the softened 1750 revision. So, deliberate persecution and later subversion. I suddenly knew this was the one.
There are spiritual rules for everything, and if you're 'tuned in' you'll find yourself guided-instinctively to them, so it's interesting to see these themes and laws clearly-indexed.
It's not just believing. It's not just being baptized. It's Eucharistic Communion with the bread being the Supernatural body of Christ, alms-giving, good works, fasting, and doing penance, including offering up your suffering as a sacrifice. All of these can repair the damage of our sins on ourselves and others, including, the sins of others we take on, for those who are dealing with the concept of Generational Curses.
The thing is, it's Early Modern English, so it's not hard to read once you learn the spelling patterns. If anything, it's far closer to 'normal' English that the weird bastardisations of the modern translations. If typed into Modern English, it scores lower on a grade reading scale that supposed 'easy-to-understand' translations like the NRSV.
Take a look, and go slowly at first:
Note the patterns:
vv = W
The f shape without a cross line = S
I = both I and J
U = both U and V
ie and ia = Y
It's not that complicated. Retyped in Modern English:
Quote:Quote:
"When Jesus was in Bethany in the House of Simon the Leper, there came to him a woman having a box of alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured it out upon his head as he sat at the table. And the disciplines, seeing it, had indignation, saying whereto is this waste? For this might have been sold for much and given to the poor.
And Jesus knowing it said to them, why do you molest this woman? For she hath wrought a good work upon me. For the poor you have always with you, but me you have not always. For she in pouring this ointment upon my body, hath done it to bury me."
See how readable and understandable that is, under the appearance of complication? It's probably a 7th grade reading level, other than a couple of archaic phrasings.
Note the cross-references to the Left, and the clarifications to the right. Here you can see the practice of remembering Saints - a heretical no-no - justified, as it will be in other places.
At the end of each chapter, you get the footnotes. Note the explanation of the Last Supper here, correcting the Calvinists, Lutherans and (soon to be) Protestants.
Note, 'creature' here means 'anything that is created on the earth' rather than animal, as in the old rites of blessing salt and holy water, which refers to them both as 'creatures'. Also note, the belief in the ability to bless is not shared by the Heretical Faiths, who instead 'give thanks'. But what if this is a real form of spiritual protection, now obscured?
Note the reinforcement of Transubstantiation.
In other cases, why is penance downplayed by the Heretics and Schismatics? Why do they loathe the veneration of Mary so? Why is fasting ignored, when Jesus gives clear instruction on how to fast? Why was I instinctively-feeling that I should be fasting during Lent, only to discover later that Vatican II removed the 40 Days Fast of Lent Christians used to be obligated to partake in? Why do all modern churches downplay the supernatural?
Why do I feel that following these instructions seems to be strengthening knowledge and connection to a higher source? Why did I instinctively look at my pictures of the Immaculate and Sacred Hearts a couple of weeks before Easter and think that it seems somehow disrespectful to display them with Good Friday coming up, to being accidentally-cum-deliberately led to the knowledge that, pre-Vatican II, you covered your iconography with purple cloth from Passion Sunday (the Sunday before Palm Sunday) until Easter Sunday. Why did I discover this two days before Passion Sunday, allowing me time to do it?
How did I find those pictures to begin with, at a random garage sale one morning, when I'd looked at the very same pictures the night before on Ebay and thought I couldn't really justify their expense, given their antique status? Why did the lady give them to me for nothing for doing her a kindness, asking me if "I believed."
What if, following these guidelines, the unexplainable is happening around me, with increasing-regularity. How could my sister have spoken to me a couple of days ago about realising our parents involvement in the occult was a stain upon our family, and that she'd undertaken the task a couple of months ago to 'own their sins and burn their cost of them away', whilst not knowing I'd come to the very same conclusion about generational curses, and decided it was my responsibility to do the very same thing. My avenue of attack was devotion to the Rosary, Denial of the Self and Good Works. Hers, fasting and offering up suffering.
"It should be crazy," she said to me, "But it isn't, is it? I'm getting used to this."
A friend of mine, previously atheistic, has noticed over the last year. "It's should be scary how you two are coming to the same realizations independently... but, well, it's not." His sister is a lesbian, so he more safely-labels it as coming from 'the powers that be' rather than God or the Holy Spirit.
Why did I tell my Sister none of this knowledge comes from greats signs and wonders, and not to look for it in the distractions of the world, but from small, gentle moment of guidance in the stillness. Why did she tell me she listens to a podcast called 'The Still Small Voice'? Why did I later read that's exactly how God came to Elijah in the Old Testament? Why, when I was wondering who could bless my Rosary, and hating my local Novus Ordo church, who promised me that 'exciting new changes were coming', did I end up at the local Carmelite Monastery, only to discover that they take a vow of silence so as to more easily hear God's voice 'that comes on a gentle breeze'.
Do you understand now why I wear a Brown Wool Scapular under my shirt?
I'm noticing, my acts of sacrifice and kindness for others are infecting those around me, almost like we have the power to heal the spiritual damage within each other. Even my atheistic friend is now volunteering to deny his own comfort or money to help others, understanding that repetition of good acts breeds virtue. I've watched my mate Bill turn from a guy who built up a wall to keep the world away, and saying I was 'foolish to help others', because then 'you don't get anywhere', and that I was 'too nice' and that he'd 'slap that out of me if I hung around him enough' - something the forum agreed with - to, well,
charity winning. He's been housing an homeless alcoholic workmate in his shed, and learning patience and forgiveness.
None of this is virtue-signalling. It's just a sense of having tapped into some, well,
old magic. If there is what we would consider 'magic' in following the practices of the Word, why does its power resonate more strongly than the power any Satanist I knew over the years seemed to possess?
Those of you who sense there's a very real Spiritual War happening over the last few years, and want to armour up and fight, this is the bible you need, particularly if you are willing to put in the work. I had the whole thing physically-printed out. It seemed important to do so. I always listen to these 'nudges' by now.
https://archive.org/stream/1610A.d.Douay...7/mode/2up
Apparently there is a Lulu, print-on-demand version of this bible, retyped in Modern English. I'll see if I can get one and report further on it.
How great is the sense of being part of an old tradition when seeing a page like this, compared to the empty Novus Ordo Churches with their New Masses, casual priests and rock music I attended as a child? No wonder I never sensed any greatness there.