A church for the Glory of God

Saint Pio de Pietrelcina Latin Mass Community needs your help

for a great project:

- A Romanesque Church, for the glory of God, where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass shall be offered daily according to the ancient magnificent Liturgy.

- A school for Saint John Bosco Academy and Saint Caecilia Academy where our children will receive an authentic Catholic education.

We need your help so that our dream may become reality. We found a beautiful property for sales in Ash Flat, Arkansas that would be perfect for our project. A house would serve as a rectory for the priest and a barn as a provisory chapel until we build our future Romanesque Church.

Rectory and office

A provisary chapel

The location of our future church

Help us and participate to a great project for the restoration of the Catholic culture. You may send your donation by check (order to Cherokee Village Latin Mass Community) at the following address:

Saint Pio de Pietrelcina Latin Mass Community
40 Matecumbe Drive
Cherokee Village AR 72529

Or with Paypal (click the link on the top right of the blog)

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered once a month for the Benefactors.

Ut In Omnimbus Glorificetur Deus

A pilgrimage in Louisiana

Pilgrimage of Thanksgiving and of Reparation
From Baton Rouge to New Orleans
November 25th – 27th

Three days of prayer, of sacrifice, but also of joy and Christian friendship, in thanksgiving for all the good graces received and in reparation for all the sins committed, especially the sin of abortion. As pilgrims on earth, we want to advance on the road to heaven and bring with us as many souls as we can. A pilgrimage is a time of conversion and of mission. Join us in this spiritual journey for the kingdom of Christ.

“On the uphill path, sandy and troublesome.
On the uphill road.
Dragged along, hanging from the arms of her two older sisters,
Who hold her by the hand,
The little Hope
Pushes on.
And in between her two older sisters she seems to let herself be carried.
Like a child who lacks the energy to walk
And is dragged along the road in spite of herself.
But in reality it is she who moves the other two
And who carries them,
And who moves the whole world.”

Charles Péguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope.

The pilgrimage will begin with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Thursday 25th at 7 am at Saint Agnes church, Baton Rouge (749 East Boulevard) We shall walk to New Orleans. Confession and spiritual direction will be available during the walk. For those who cannot walk all the way, vehicles will follow us. The pilgrimage will end Saturday 27th with a High Mass at the shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos (2030 Constance Street, New Orleans) at noon.
Bring good shoes, food and beverage, a sleeping bag, your rosary and your joy and good zeal.

Voting Right - Voting the Commandments

Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary

Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

Saint Paul helps us today to continue our meditation on the virtue of humility. We have seen last week that this virtue is necessary for justification, and that all the works performed without this excellent virtue are useless. We have also seen that everything we have has been given by God and that, therefore, there is no reason for us to be proud. True humility does not make us deny our gifts, but rather use them for the glory of God. It supposes that we acknowledge first our gifts. It is what our Blessed Mother did when she said her Magnificat: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because he that is mighty has done great things to me: and holy is his name. It is what Saint Paul does when he says: By the grace of God, I am what I am. He, who was a persecutor of the Church, is now one of her Apostles, and this is the work of the grace of God.

Holy Scriptures teaches us about the virtue of humility. Everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. Commentating on this verse, Saint Benedict tells us what to do in order to be exalted. He describes humility as a ladder – the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream – on which Angels appeared to him descending and ascending. By that descent and ascent we must surely understand nothing else than this, that we descend by self-exaltation and ascend by humility. And the ladder thus set up is our life in the world, which the Lord raises up to heaven if our heart is humbled. This ladder has 12 degrees that we have to climb one by one.
The first degree of humility, then, is that a person keeps the fear of God before his eyes and bewares of ever forgetting it. Let him be ever mindful of all that God has commanded; let his thoughts constantly recur to the hell-fire which will burn for their sins those who despise God and to the life everlasting which is prepared for those who fear Him. Let him keep himself at every moment from sins and vices, whether of the mind, the tongue, the hands, the feet,
or the self-will, and check also the desires of the flesh.

This is basically what Holy Mother Church constantly recalls us during the Sundays after Pentecost. There is even not an ounce of humility in a person who still lives in sin.

On the 5th Sunday, we were told by Saint Peter to refrain our tongues from evil and our lips that we speak no guile. We can never speak enough of the seriousness of the sins of the tongue, which are often the sins of the coward. Someone once asked Saint Anthony, "What is backbiting?" and he replied, "It is every sort of wicked word we dare not speak in front of the person about whom we are talking." This is truly the nature of backbiters. They cannot do physical harm to those who are absent, so they strike at them with their tongue. Saint Thomas Aquinas says, "Destroying a person's reputation is a very serious wrong." And Saint Bernard declares, "Backbiting is a great vice, a great sin, a great crime."

The Scriptures says You shall not curse the deaf! Here is how Saint Gregory explains these words: "Backbiting someone who is deaf means backbiting one who is absent and cannot hear you. Just as a deaf man cannot hear or understand what is said, so it is with an absent person someone backbites. He cannot reply or rectify the errors of which he is the object."

He who speaks evil commits a great sin. So does he who listens to him, as Saint Bernard explains: “I would have difficulty deciding which of them is more damnable," he says, "he who backbites or he who listens to the backbiter. Even if we excuse it as wit or banter, every jesting word must be banished not only from our mouth, but also from our ears. "

In today’s gospel, Our Lord heals a deaf and dumb man. Speaking and hearing are such gifts from God! But as well as every other gift, they must be used with humility for a good purpose. Sins of the tongues are unfortunately so common throughout the world. But when they come from Christians, they are even more serious, more reprehensible and more harmful. They hurt the Mystical Body of Christ and are object of scandal. On the day of your Baptism, the priest put the salt of wisdom on your tongue and touched your ears saying like Jesus: Ephpheta, be opened. This was done so that you can hear the teaching of God and speak out wisely in order to praise God.

Let us remember, brethren, that we are accountable for what we say and what we listen. The first degree of humility, then, is that a person keeps the fear of God before his eyes. May this fear make us use well all our faculties and abilities for the glory of God and not for our own satisfaction!

In Memoriam

August 6th 1945 - Hiroshima: about 90,000 casualties

August 9th 1945 - Nagasaki: about 40,000 casualties

Plus about 80,000 injured people who eventually died

Total: about 200,000 victims.

I have always considered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a crime against humanity, there is absolutely no doubt about this. Then I was surprised, for not saying shocked, to hear some Traditional Catholic Americans who say that it was a necessary thing to end the war and to save the life of American soldiers. Ending the war and saving American lives is definitely a good purpose, but not at any cost. And patriotism is certainly a very good thing…as long as it remains virtuous, which means as long as it remains a prudent medium between defect and excess. One can love his country very much without justifying the crimes of its Government. The fact is that on a moral level, nothing can justify the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, according to the old principle: the end does not justify the means.
Besides, in the opinion of many, this was totally useless, as Japan was already almost defeated.

Dwight Eisenhower:
Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude.. "

Admiral William Leahy:
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

"Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." (Cathechism of the Catholic Churc # 2314)

Righteousness is in us, not of us!

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Men’s justice is definitively not like God’s justice, and this is a very good thing. It is a very good thing because God is infallible in his judgments and infinitely good and merciful in his sentences, whether He condemns or He acquits. Men are certainly not infallible and as for their goodness and mercy, though it is possible to find them in certain noble hearts, it is still in a relative proportion that will never attain the divine perfection. Most of the men are rather prompt to condemn their neighbor while they so easily justify themselves. And when these men pretend to be religious, such an attitude becomes simply more obnoxious as it is a caricature of religion. It is true that men have the tendency to belittle the holy things that God has given. This is our nature: we have this treasure in earthen vessels, Saint Paul says.

But knowing this should precisely make us humbler, acting with fear, like a person who would have to handle precious porcelain and would be afraid of breaking it. Cardinal Newman, commentating on Saint Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians, says that righteousness is in us, but not of us. The Corinthians "had had gifts given them, he says. They did not forget they had them; they used, they abused them; they forgot, not that they were theirs, but that they were given them. They seem to have thought that those gifts were theirs by a sort of right, because they were persons of more cultivation of mind than others, of more knowledge, more refinement. In spite of the clear views which the Apostle had doubtless given them on their conversion of their utter nothingness in themselves; in spite too of their confessing it, yet they did not feel that they came from God. They seemed, as it were, to claim them, or at least to view their possession of them as a thing of course; they acted as if they were their own, not with humbleness and gratitude towards their Giver, not with a sense of responsibility, not with fear and trembling, but as if they were lords over them, as if they had sovereign power to do what they would with them, as if they might use them from themselves and for themselves."

Such is the Pharisee of today’s gospel who reckons that he is justified. Such is his judgment. He is sanctimonious, satisfied of himself. He is so full of himself that he even gives thanks to God for what he is. He thanks God for not being like the others that he looks down upon. Pride and prejudice! It seems to be a very old sin. In fact, "in every age of the Church, Cardinal Newman says again, Christians have been tempted to pride themselves on their gifts, or at least to forget that they were gifts, and to take them for granted. Ever have they been tempted to forget their own responsibilities, their having received what they are bound to improve, and the duty of fear and trembling, while improving it."

Every age of the Church, Cardinal Newman says. Dear Brethren, let us well consider that we might be tempted to act like the Corinthians of the time of Saint Paul, like the Pharisees of anytime. For us, who by the grace of God, have been preserved from the modernist errors, for us, who might know well our catechism and the teaching of the Popes, for us who can worship according to the old and venerable Tradition of the Church, there is a danger if we forget that we have precisely some responsibilities for having received such gifts. God asks more to those who have received more, and if you take for granted what you have received, remember that it may be taken away from you one day.

Without humility, all these beautiful gifts from God would become the object of our condemnation. Attending the Latin Mass is not always and necessarily a ticket for heaven. It can also be your ticket for hell if you do not humble yourself. Dom Guéranger, commentating on today’s gospel, reminds us of what humility is:

Humility, which produces within us this salutary fear, is the virtue that makes man know his right place, with regard both to God and to his fellow-men. It rests on the deep-rooted conviction, put into our hearts by grace, that God is everything, and that we, by nature, are nothingness, nay, less than nothingness, because we have degraded ourselves by sin. Reason is able, of herself alone, to convince anyone, who takes the trouble to reflect, of the nothingness of a creature; but such conviction, if it remain a mere theoretical conclusion, is not humility: it is a conviction which forces itself on the devil in hell, whose vexation at such a truth is the chief source of his rage.

So, do not thank God for what you are, because you are just a sinner. Give thanks to God for what you have received. And since what you have is what you have received, do not keep it for yourselves, but share it with others. This is where charity blossoms and it cannot blossom if it is not rooted in the soil of humility.

Only one surgical abortion site in Arkansas

It is still too much, but we can rejoice for the following news received from 40 Days for Life. Deo gratias!


It appears to be official - William Harrison is closing the Fayetteville Women's Clinic due to health reasons. In case you missed it, this story aired on KFSM. http://www.kfsm.com/news/kfsm-news-fayetteville-womens-clinic-closing,0,7890155.story

Please continue to pray for Harrison, his health, conversion, family and that no other abortionist comes to take his place.

We give all the glory and praise to God that abortions have stopped at the Fayetteville Women's Clinic. Thank you to each one of you who has prayed for an end to abortion in our town, state and nation and taken a stand against the injustice of abortion. As we rejoice over the babies that will be saved and the parents who will be spared from a lifetime of regret by currently not having an abortionist at the FWC, we must continue to pray that abortions will also stop at Planned Parenthood on Township. Planned Parenthood performs medical abortions through RU-486 and distributes abortifacient contraceptives. In addition, it is rumored that Planned Parenthood may be considering building a mega clinic in Arkansas, which means our prayers are all the more important at this time.

In case you are wondering, 40 Days for Life will take place as planned this fall in Fayetteville. Given the recent events, we are carefully discerning the location of the fall campaign. We will be sure and keep you updated. God bless.

Destruction of Jerusalem

Commentary of Saint Gregory the Great on today's gospel

"The evil spirits lay siege to the soul, as it goes forth from the body, for being seized with the love of the flesh, they caress it with delusive pleasures. They surround it with a trench, because bringing all its wickedness which it has committed before the eyes of its mind, they close confine it to the company of its own damnation, that being caught in the very extremity of life, it may see by what enemies it is blockaded, yet be unable to find any way of escape, because it can no longer do good works, since those which it might once have done it despised. On every side also they enclose the soul when its iniquities rise up before it, not only in deed but also in word and thought, that she who before in many ways greatly enlarged herself in wickedness, should now at the end be straitened every way in judgment. Then indeed the soul by the very condition of its guilt is laid prostrate on the ground, while its flesh which it believed to be its life is bid to return to dust. Then its children fall in death, when all unlawful thoughts which only proceed from it, are in the last punishment of life scattered abroad. These may also be signified by the stones. For the corrupt mind when to a corrupt thought it adds one more corrupt, places one stone upon another. But when the soul is led to its doom, the whole structure of its thoughts is rent asunder. But the wicked soul God ceases not to visit with His teaching, sometimes with the scourge and sometimes with a miracle; that the truth which it knew not it may hear, and though still despising it, may return pricked to the heart in sorrow, or overcome with mercies may be ashamed at the evil which it has done. But because it knows not the time of its visitation, at the end of life it is given over to its enemies, that with them it may be joined together in the bond of everlasting damnation."

La voici, la voilà!

L'intégrale du Défilé du 14 juillet 2010, qui plus est, sans les commentaires !

Merci au Ministère de la Défense !

I like this octopus

There is no need to present Octopus Paul, the most famous octopus in the world who was 100% right for his predictions during the World Cup. He can now enjoy a peaceful and well deserved retirement but Paul thought he still had a prediction to make. Is this the announcement of the near coming of the Great Monarch?

The truth about Bastille Day

The following text was written by John Zmirak and published on the blog InsideCatholic.com (July 15th 2008.)

Yesterday probably passed without much fanfare in your home, but July 14 is a day I usually try to commemorate. Not because I carry a single drop of French blood (more's the pity -- I'd be proud to be a cousin of Joan of Arc and François Mauriac). No, it's because I think Bastille Day is a solemn occasion every Catholic should remember -- like the feast of the Martyrs of Mexico, or the Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War.

Bastille Day marks the beginning of the greatest organized persecution of the Church since the Emperor Diocletian, and the explosion onto the world of ideologies that would poison the next two centuries: socialism and radical nationalism. Between them, those two political movements racked up quite a body count: In his 1997 book Death By Government, scholar R. J. Rummel pointed out that during the first 88 years of this century, almost 170,000,000 men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; or buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens or foreigners.

And the first such modern genocide in the West took place in France, beginning in 1793. It was undertaken by modern, progressive apostles of Enlightenment and aimed at Catholic peasants, and by its end up to 300,000 civilians had been killed by the armies of the Republic.

It was ordinary peasants of the Vendée and Brittany regions who rose up in that year against the middle-class radicals in Paris who controlled the country. The ideologues of the Revolution had already

• executed the king and queen, and left their young son to die of disease in prison;
• declared a revolutionary "war of liberation" against most of the other countries in Europe;
• seized all property of the Church, expelling thousands of monks, priests, and nuns to fend for themselves, then sold the property to their cronies to raise money for their wars;
• ordered all clergy to swear allegiance to the French state instead of the pope; and
• launched the first universal conscription in history, drafting ordinary people (most of them devout peasants bewildered by the slogans that held sway in Paris) to fight for the Revolution.

When the Parisians came to take away their sons for the army, the Vendeans finally fought back and launched a counter-revolution in the name of "God and King." It quickly spread across the northwest of France, tying down the government's professional armies -- fighting untrained bands of devout guerillas, many of them armed only with muskets suited to hunting.

As Sophie Masson -- herself a descendant of Catholics who fought in the Vendée resistance -- has written:

The atrocities multiplied, the exterminations systematic and initiated from the very top, and carried out with glee at the bottom. At least 300,000 people were massacred during that time, and those of the intruders who refused to do the job were either shot or discredited utterly. But still the people resisted. Still there were those who hid in the forests and ambushed, who fought as bravely as lions but were butchered like pigs when they were caught. No quarter was given; all the leaders were shot, beheaded, or hanged. Many were not even allowed to rest in peace; the body of the last leader was cut up and distributed to scientists; his head was pickled in a jar, the brain examined to see where the seed of rebellion lay in the mind of a savage. . . .

"Not one is to be left alive." "Women are reproductive furrows who must be ploughed under." "Only wolves must be left to roam that land." "Fire, blood, death are needed to preserve liberty." "Their instruments of fanaticism and superstition must be smashed." These were some of the words the Convention used in speaking of the Vendée. Their tame scientists dreamed up all kinds of new ideas -- the poisoning of flour and alcohol and water supplies, the setting up of a tannery in Angers which would specialise in the treatment of human skins; the investigation of methods of burning large numbers of people in large ovens, so their fat could be rendered down efficiently. One of the Republican generals, Carrier, was scornful of such research: these "modern" methods would take too long. Better to use more time-honoured methods of massacre: the mass drownings of naked men, women, and children, often tied together in what he called "republican marriages," off specially constructed boats towed out to the middle of the Loire and then sunk; the mass bayoneting of men, women and children; the smashing of babies' heads against walls; the slaughter of prisoners using cannons; the most grisly and disgusting tortures; the burning and pillaging of villages, towns and churches.

The persecution only really ended when Napoleon came to power in 1799 -- and needed peace at home so that he could launch his wars of conquest. He patched together a modus vivendi with the pope, and the Vendée quieted down.

This story is little discussed in France. Indeed, a Catholic historian who teaches at a French university once told me over dinner, "We are not to mention the Vendée. Anyone who brings up what was done there has no prospect of an academic career. So we keep silent." It is mostly in the Vendée itself that memories linger, which may explain why that part of France to this day remains more Catholic and more conservative than any other region. The local government, to its credit, opened a museum marking these atrocities on their 200th anniversary in 1993 -- with a visit by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who pointed out that the mass murders of Christians in Russia were directly inspired by those in the Vendée. The Bolsheviks, he said, modeled themselves on the French revolutionaries, and pointed to the Vendée massacres as the right way to deal with Christian resistance.

Of course, it wasn't supposed to work out this way. The Revolution had begun with a financial crisis, and promised to pare back an absolutist monarchy, perhaps along British lines. King Louis XVI -- a kindly if not terribly competent king, who'd lifted legal penalties against Protestants and Jews -- had bankrupted his kingdom bankrolling the American Revolution. (In gratitude, the U.S. Congress hung a portrait of the monarch in the Capitol, and named for his family the southern county which gave birth to bourbon.) The legislators who met in 1789 for the first time in over a century intended at first to reform their government, not replace it.

And some reforms were certainly needed: the ruthless centralization imposed by Louis XIV and XV had hollowed out French political life and concentrated power over the lives of citizens almost entirely in Paris, in the hands of technocrats. Predictably, they'd made a mess of things.

Unlike its sister kingdom across the channel, France had no sitting parliament, no common law protecting its subjects from arbitrary arrest, and an economy largely driven not by free citizens but the state. The French "Gallican" Church, while still in communion with Rome, was largely controlled by the kings -- who appointed its bishops and set its policies. Indeed, the kings of France, Portugal, and Spain had arranged in 1767 for the suppression of the Jesuits -- whose loyalty to Rome and rejection of the Divine Right of Kings made them suspect, and whose defense of the rights of Indians got in the way of "progress."

The educational vacuum created by the destruction of this order was quickly (and ironically) filled by Enlightenment philosophes. The first generation to rise without the Jesuits would come of age in 1789. The abuses that would mark the Revolution -- including mass executions of priests and nuns -- were endorsed by intellectuals schooled on the slanderous pamphlets of Diderot, full of pornographic falsehoods about the "secret lives" of monks and nuns.

Indeed, there's a chilling similarity between the anti-clerical literature that prepared the public for the looting of monasteries and the anti-Semitic canards that were spread by the Nazis. The euphemism that was used to describe stealing monastic property for the state -- "secularization" -- found its echo in the 1930s in the term the German government employed for robbing the Jews: "aryanization." If the Jews are indeed a priestly people, it is not surprising that such diabolical parallels exist.

Just as fascists excused their atrocities by pointing to Jewish prominence in the financial sphere and the press, leftists still defend the persecution of the Church by pointing to her political influence. We shouldn't let them get away with it. I wait in vain for the historian who will write a comprehensive comparison of anti-Semitism and anti-clericalism.

In the meantime, I'll mark Bastille Day as best I can. In 1989, I helped organize a Requiem Mass for all the Revolution's victims (we invited the French consul-general, but he pleaded a prior engagement). On several subsequent anniversaries, I've thrown a memorial party on the day, with foods and wines from the Vendée and counter-revolutionary songs. (Recipes and lyrics appear in each of my Bad Catholic's guides.) In the Christian spirit of transforming suffering into joy, I think that the hearty folk who fought for God and king would appreciate the gesture. But in the Vendée itself, a French friend has told me, some people still wear black armbands on their country's national holiday.

Rediscovering simplicity of life!

I was happy when I recently found the English translation of a very good book that I read some years ago when I was in the Seminary: Abandonment to Divine Providence by Father de Caussade, s.j.

Father de Caussade (1675-1751) was a French Jesuit, director of souls, preacher of the Spiritual Exercises. He wrote several books of spiritualy that are all helpful and accessible to anyone. He is known for his belief in the sacredness of the present moment, or the "eternal now", proof that the Jesuits can be be close to the Benedictines.... sometimes! We will come back to this notion soon.

For now, as an appetizer, enjoy the following words of Father de Caussade. May they help us to discover the simplicity of life that we need.

"God still speak today as he spoke to our fathers, when there were no spiritual directors or set methods. Then, spirituality consisted in fidelity to the designs of God, for it had not yet been reduced to an art and explained in a lofty and detailed manner with many rules, maxims, and instructions. Surely our present needs demand this, but it was not so in former times when we were more upright and simple. Then it was enough for those who led a spiritual life to see that each moment brought with it a duty to be faithfully fulfilled. On that duty the whole of their attention was fixed at each successive moment, like the hand of the clock which marks each moment of the hour. Under God’s unceasing guidance their spirit turned without conscious effort to each new duty as it was presented to them by God each hour of the day."

Le Mont Saint Michel

De magnifiques images de la Merveille de l'Occident.

Merci à MGRoyaume

"Plus loin, dans la ligne bleuâtre des flots aperçus, d'autres roches noyées montraient leurs crêtes brunes ; et l'œil, continuant le tour de l'horizon vers la droite, découvrait à côté de cette solitude sablonneuse la vaste étendue verte du pays normand, si couvert d'arbres qu'il avait l'air d'un bois illimité. C'était toute la nature s'offrant d'un seul coup, en un seul lieu, dans sa grandeur, dans sa puissance, dans sa fraîcheur et dans sa grâce; et le regard allait de cette vision de forêts à cette apparition du mont de granit, solitaire habitant des sables, qui dressait sur la grève démesurée son étrange figure gothique." (Guy de Maupassant)

The Nature of Sacramental Grace (V)

By Father Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

Our dignity is further revealed in the Sacrament of Penance. In order to receive absolution, men and women entrust the priest with their secret thoughts and desires, which not even the Angels themselves are allowed to know. And thus the priest actually cooperated with God in giving back life to the soul. So, whether he is celebrating Mass or ministering to souls, he is another Christ. His priesthood is a splendid participation in the priesthood of Christ; he is Christ’s minister, His living, conscious instrument for the saving of souls.

Remember that the priest in celebrating Mass is so closely united to Christ – the principal Offerer – as his instrument that the one effect of Consecration is produced by both of them together, just as a writer and his pen produce the same effect. The effect of Consecration – the changing of the substance of bread and wine – is produced by God as the principal agent, by the huminity of Christ as the instrument conjoined to the divinity, and by the celebrant as a separate instrument, conscious and free.

It might be objected that the Sacramental grace of the priesthood is of less worth than the priestly character, for although the latter is indelible, sacramental grace, like Sanctifying Grace, is lost by mortal sin. This is a serious difficulty, since the more perfect an accidental reality, the more firmly does it inhere in the substance to which it belongs. Therefore, grace, which can be lost, does appear to be less perfect than the character which can never be lost.

In reply to this objection, notice why it is that the character cannot be lost. It is not because of its own perfection and dignity, but because it is conferred for the valid celebration of Mass and for the valid administration of Penance, which provide for the spiritual welfare of the faithful. This is very well explained by St. Thomas: “The sacramental character is a sharing of Christ’s priesthood by His faithful…”; also, in answer to the first objection: “Grace is present in the soul as a form complete in its being, whereas the character is there as an instrumental power. Now a complete form is present in its subject according to the condition of that subject , so that grace is present in the soul of a person here on earth according to the volatile nature of the will. But an instrumental power is to be considered rather from the point of view of the condition of the principal agent; hence the character is indelibly present in the soul not because of any perfection of its own but because of the perfection belonging to Christ’s priesthood, from which the character originates as an instrumental power.” (IIIa, Q.63, art 5c).

Again, in answer to the third objection, St. Thomas says: “The character endures even after this life, in the good as redounding to their glory, in the wicked as stressing their disgrace, just as the character of military service remains in a soldier after the victory has been won, as the mark of honor in the victors, as a mark of dishonor in the vanquished.”

This concludes for the present our study of the dignity of Christ’s priesthood and of ours.

Saint John Bosco Academy coat of arm

We are glad to present our new coat of arm

Visit Saint John Bosca Academy's website: http://www.saintjohnboscoacademy.net/

The Nature of Sacramental Grace (IV)

By Father Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Corollaries

Therefore the sacramental grace of the priesthood, since it is a permanent and intrinsic mode of habitual grace, can be looked upon as a feature of the priest’s spiritual character which is meant to develop and grow to perfection – to the age of maturity in the spiritual life.

It follows that while no growth is possible in the character of Holy Orders, which empowers a man to exercise validly the priestly functions, yet the sacramental grace, having as its aim an increasingly holy celebration of Mass and administration of Penance, is intensified at the same time as habitual grace, which it modifies and strengthens in a special way. True, this is not expressed in so many words in the theological works, but it is deduced as certain from the purpose of these divine gifts.

And thus all are agreed that the sacramental grace of Holy Orders should bear fruit and that it entitles a man to further and higher actual graces – provided no obstacle is put in the way. It develops rather like the features of a child countenance, which change with the different facial expressions of smiling, crying, blinking, etc. Therefore, “how careful we must be not to lose that sacramental grace or prove ourselves unworthy of it by receiving the Sacrament without the suitable disposition.” (Billuart )

The value of our priesthood is also evident in the fact to which we have already alluded – namely, that so far as the Consecration of the Eucharist is concerned, the Bishop himself has no greater power than the priest. And this power of consecrating the body of Christ is far more outstanding than the power of consecrating priests and chalices, because the Holy Eucharist is the supreme Sacrament and Sacrifice, containing not merely the gift of grace but the very Author of grace. So we find St. Thomas, St. Albert, St. Bonaventure, Scotus and Soto of the opinion that the Episcopate is not a separate Sacrament from that of priesthood but is its extension and perfect complement, giving the power to ordain, confirm and govern. It is, therefore, the fullness of the priesthood and is intended to be as fruitful in the Bishop as the grace of priesthood should be in the priest.

The Nature of Sacramental Grace (III)

By Father Garrigou-Lagrange, o.p.

Is it possible to be more precise in determining the nature of this permanent supernatural reality if it is not a new habit distinct from Sanctifying Grace, the infused virtues or the gifts? So far we have moved in the realms of certainty but now we must descend to probability.

It seems to be the more probable opinion, held by John of Saint Thomas, the theologians of Salamanca, Contenson, Hugon, Merkelbach and many other Thomists, that the sacramental grace is a special modification and strengthening of Sanctifying Grace, which exerts an influence on the acts of the various virtues. We know already that the grace of original justice had a particular vital force of its own in addition to habitual grace which has now been restored to us, and it is this special vigor which is given back to us in some measure by the proper effect of each of the Sacraments. This modal reality added to habitual grace forms the basis of the moral right to the future reception of actual graces corresponding to the Sacrament received. We find something similar – although on a higher plane – in the lives of Our Lady and St. Joseph. Our Lady was given the grace of motherhood, the love and tenderness of a mother, St. Joseph the love and prudence of a foster father, both of them thus receiving a special modification and strengthening of Sanctifying Grace.

Although all the statements in this section have been deduced from the purpose of the Sacraments, this final conclusion cannot be put forward as anything other than the more probable opinion. But our view can be confirmed by considering each of the Sacraments in turn. The grace of Baptism is given not merely to make us capable of living a supernatural life – such as was enjoyed by Adam before his fall and by the Angels – but in order to help us to live as Christians by following the example of Christ in His work of Redemption. And so this grace, by enabling us to live as Christians, disposes us to love the Cross, a disposition not present either in the good Angels or in Adam before the fall.

The grace of Confirmation is intended to make us constant and prudent in witnessing to the truth of the Christian Faith. The grace of Holy Communion is given to unite us more closely to Christ through an increase of charity. The sacramental grace of Penance is meant as a help for avoiding the occasions of sins. The sacramental grace of Marriage strengthens the parties to live as followers of Christ in their married state and to educate their children according to Christian principles. The grace of Holy Orders is conferred that the priest may fulfill his sacred duties – the act of Consecration, sacramental absolution, preaching, spiritual direction – with ever-increasing holiness: and so we speak of priestly love and priestly prudence. It is clear, therefore, that the modality of habitual grace, about which we have spoken above, exercices an influence on the infused virtues, which flow from Sanctifying Grace.

The nature of sacramental grace (2)

By Father Garrigou-Lagrange, o.p.

The Council of Florence uses a similar argument, although expressing it in a different form: “By Baptism we are spiritually reborn; by Confirmation we receive an increase of grace and are strengthened in faith; already reborn and strengthened, we are then nourished with the divine food of the Eucharist. If the soul should fall sick through sin, we are spiritually healed through penance, etc.” The Council of Trent declares: “If anyone should say that the Sacraments of the New Law are not essential for salvation but superfluous, let him be anathema.” Therefore the sacramental grace does add something to habitual or Sanctifying Grace.

But what does it add? This can also be deduced from its purpose, but in order to be methodical, we must first decide what it does not add and what is the general teaching of theologians on this point. In this way it will prove possible to discover what is admitted as certain by everyone and what is the more probable opinion where certainty cannot be attained.

It is the common teaching of theologians that sacramental grace is not a new infused habit distinct from Sanctifying Grace. On the one hand, the soul is already sufficiently sanctified in its essence by habitual grace, which makes us sharers in the divine nature, just as Adam before his falls and the Angels were sanctified without receiving the Sacraments; on the other hand, the faculties of our soul are sufficiently empowered to perform supernatural acts by the infused virtues and the seven gifts, which flow from Sanctifying Grace. Therefore, sacramental grace is not a new infused habit.

All theologians are also agreed that the sacramental grace adds to Sanctifying Grace a definite right to receive at the appropriate moment those actual graces which correspond to the end of each of the Sacraments. Without this addition, the sacramental grace would be possessed by anyone in the state of Sanctifying Grace, and thus no special grace would be produced by any of the Sacraments. So the very least we can say of each of the Sacraments is that they give this title to special actual graces.

But this title, being a relative and morale reality, needs a real foundation which cannot be other than the sacramental grace enduring in the soul as an intrinsic reality. We know already that our right to an eternal inheritance is founded on habitual grace – the seed of glory – and our meritorious acts which obtain an intensification of that grace. So in a similar way, the right to the actual graces corresponding to the particular end of each Sacrament is founded on the sacramental grace itself, which cannot be regarded as a mere moral or relative entity, but must be the foundation of that right; it is a permanent, intrinsic and supernatural reality inhering the soul. Of this we are certain from what has been revealed about the purpose of sacramental grace. St. Paul speaks about this permanent reality in Timothy: “Neglect not the grace that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with imposition of the hands of the priesthood.”

(To be continued...)

The nature of Sacramental Grace

The Nature of Sacramental Grace (I)
With Special Reference to the Priesthood
By Father Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

(From The Priest in Union with Christ)

It is difficult to determine accurately the nature of sacramental grace, and the question is rarely given a sufficiently systematic treatment. Yet it does help to bring out in a greater relief the dignity of our priesthood. We will begin by noting what is more well known and certain about this question from Revelation.
At once we discover that more is known with certainty about the purpose of this grace than about its nature. In fact, the same holds true of habitual grace (sanctifying Grace); what is primarily known with certainty about this gift is that it is the seed of glory of eternal life. But we know that this eternal life is a sharing in God’s own intimate life through the Beatific Vision and an unceasing act of love – acts which necessarily presuppose a share in the divine nature. Therefore, habitual grace must be some kind of participation in the divine nature or Godhead, in order to be the seed of glory.

And so it is the purpose of sacramental grace which is first made known to us by Revelation through Sacred Scripture and Tradition. It is conferred on man to help him exercise worthily and in close union with God those actions which he can perform validly by reason of the character he has received. Hence, the sacramental grace of the priesthood is intended for the worthy and increasingly holy fulfillment of our priestly duties – consecration and sacramental absolution. This much is admitted as certain by all theologians.

But what of the nature of this grace? This can be deduced from its purpose, which is the primary cause of any being; an agent only acts with a definite end in view and produces a perfection which corresponds to that end. St. Thomas asks whether the sacramental grace adds anything further to habitual grace, which he calls “the grace of the virtues and gifts,” since the infused virtues and the seven gifts (of the Holy Ghost) have their origin in that grace – that was true even of Adam before his fall, and of the Angels, although they had not received the Sacraments. He replies that it must add something, otherwise there would be no point in conferring the Sacraments on those who already possess the grace of virtues and gifts. (Cf IIIa, Q.62, art 2)

Confirmation and the Eucharist are received by persons already baptized, but such Sacraments are meaningless unless they produce some special effect. To suggest that they merely produce an increase of grace is not sufficient, for the frequent repetition of one and the same Sacrament would have a similar effect. Certainly there would never be any need for more than three Sacraments: Baptism for the reception of the first grace, Penance for those who had lost their baptismal grace, and a third Sacrament for the increase of the grace in a just. So any solution of the problem along those lines could never explain why there are seven Sacraments specifically distinct from each other, which must, therefore confer a special grace if they are not to be pointless. The whole question depends on this notion of “purpose.”