Institute of Catholic Culture

The Gnostic heresy was one of the earliest heresies that infected the Church founded by Jesus Christ. By denying that Jesus Christ came in the flesh Gnosticism sought to undermine the very foundation of our salvation, for as a famous Patristic maxim states, What has not been assumed has not been healed. In this lecture, Dr. William Marshner will reveal the errors of Gnosticism and show how Christ in His Incarnation, as the One Mediator between God and man, is the bridge to salvation.

With a special performance by Chorus Sine Nomine. “Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.” - Song of Songs 7:11-12

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” - Micah 5:2

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father.” - John 1:14

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” - Micah 5:2

The soul who contemplates for more than a moment the events surrounding the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin on Tepeyac Hill in December of 1531 cannot fail to shudder before the uniqueness of this mystery. Our attention is focused on at least two things: a supernatural intervention in the life of a nation that has no equal, and a speculation about the rest of the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe that has yet to unfold.

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” - Micah 5:2

“When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” - Galatians 4:4-5

“When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. ...Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.” - Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas 19, 25

“It is quite evident that the present time especially cries out for a keener awareness of the Socratic-Platonic wisdom… It cries out for resistance to the attempt and the temptation to establish the autocratic rule of man, who deludes himself that he possesses sovereign powers over the world and over himself and thus squanders his real existential patrimony.” - Josef Pieper, Divine Madness: Plato’s Case Against Secular Humanism