Credidimus Caritati

Two weeks ago I attended Sunday Mass at a Chapel run by the Fraternity of St. Pius X. I was struck by how beautifully redone the once agnostic space had become a place befitting the worship of God. I was encouraged by the arrangement of photographs of the diocesean bishop, Pope Benedict XVI, and Archbishop Lefebvre respectively as this is an arrangement I have in my own home. The church proper was oriented correctly with beautiful stations of the cross, and several gorgeous statues of Our Lord and Lady. The altar, made of Italian marble, was beautiful and the center of attention in the chapel.

There were a wide variety of people present: the young and old, large families, and single men and women all dressed appropriately. The chapel was quiet. The only sounds came from the clacking of wayward rosary beads against the pews and a few children clamoring for a better seat to the annoyance of an elder brother or sister. All eyes were on the altar. Some knelt at the altar rail and lit candles in the votive candle holders before statues of St. Joseph and our Lady. The altar boys prepared the sanctuary for Holy Mass with devotion and precision - both in cassock and surplice. The priest entered the sacristy wearing cassock, collar, and clerical shoes.

An altar boy announced the opening hymn, Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest, and the closing hymn, Salve Regina. Everyone attentively stood while the priest and altar boys processed into the sanctuary and intoned the prayers at the foot of the altar. The Mass was beautifully prayed. So good so far.

However, when it came time for the homily, the only thought running across my mind was the crucifix on the center of the altar. Bishop Fulton Sheen once said "The only way to win audiences is to tell people about the life and death of Christ. Every other approach is a waste." This is not meant to be an editorial about homiletics, take from it what you will in that regard, but I want to discuss a mindset that I believe to be generally false regarding the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X. That is to say, that their priests and faithful fail to preach charity and the pursuit of holiness, but are filled with bitterness regarding the current state of the Church.

This particular priest began to speak of the beauty and tradition of the Gregorian Mass, but soon enough turned to the banality of the Novus Ordo Missae and the revolution in the Church that spawned it. He went on to recount how the Fraternity courageously resisted the novelty of the Second Vatican Council and continued to do so today.

I was devastated though I agreed with nearly everything he said. Nevertheless, I felt that after all of the apologias over cheap wine and cartons of cigarettes I had offered the Society, I had been let down at the pulpit the first time I had ever attended Mass at one of their chapels. I turned my head to Litany of Humility I had picked up in the vestibule of the chapel and began to pray - not only for humility, but charity!

Archbishop Lefebvre's coat of arms carried the phrase "Credidimus Caritati" - We have believed in charity. The Archbishop pleaded with his priests and later his bishops with the words of St. Paul, "Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine." Preach the Word! I could have counted on one hand the number of times the name of our Lord was mentioned in the course of this homily! I was never once exhorted to be holy and to sanctify myself or to show charity towards others. Instead I was told from the pulpit about the inferiority of the Novus Ordo Missae and the post Conciliar Church. "But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection" I wanted to be instructed by an Order who styles themselves as the new Jesuits on how to achieve sanctity and attain eternal salvation. I wanted to be entreated to live a life of greater holiness and tremble at the thought of offending my God again. I wanted to leave that chapel filled with the Bread of Heaven and words of eternal life.The Gospel reading for that day was the feeding of the 4,000 from the Gospel of Mark. How perfectly Eucharistic!

I once joked to a friend who was considering coming to their first Gregorian Mass and skipping their ordinary Novus Ordo, "wouldn't you rather have bread than stones?" I had expected a medicinal fish in sound preaching on the life and death of Christ, but was instead offered venomous serpents. At this Mass, I was given the Bread of Life from the altar, but serpents from the pulpit!

I do not think that a single person in that chapel from young to old was not aware that there is a crisis of identity in the Church. The the Mass and Sacraments have been mutilated nearly beyond the point of recognition and that failures and abuses on the part of the institutional Church have left the faithful in a spiritual desert for the last forty years.

Our Lord once rebuked his apostles saying, "this kind [of daemon] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting." I believe that the current crisis in the Church will only be repaired - and it will be repaired by our Lord who never abandons His Church - by charity and penance. Sound doctrine and the immutable traditions of the Church will prevail as the gates of hell were not given a chance by our Lord, but this does not mean that one's attachment to Tradition and the preservation of the Gregorian Mass and Sacraments is license to beat the dead horse of apostasy and dilution. If one wants to win souls for Christ and his Church, do so by preaching His charity and His mercy. Entreat people to convert and live heroic lives of holiness in the darkness of a hostile world. Encourage them to be a light that draws from the Light itself in the midst of scandal and apostasy. Because we have believed in charity we must act accordingly. This is the way of saints.

We have often heard it said that seeing is believing. Well I have seen and still I do not believe. While this may enrage my opponents in those late night debates I cannot allow myself to sell out the ideals Archbishop Lefebvre in forming priests to resist the Modernism of the world, while at the same time preaching charity. These thoughts are currently being formulated into a letter that will be written to the priest who usually ministers to Holy Redeemer and I hope to discuss this visiting priest's actions with him.

Continue to pray and make acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart for all priests. Especially pray for Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the FSSPX, in the coming months. And remember me as well.

Ad Meioram Dei Gloriam