The Catholic
COUNTER-REFORMATION
IN THE XXth CENTURY

No 315

Online edition of selected articles

JANUARY 1999

« SALVATION COMES FROM THE JEWS »

FOREWORD
by the Abbé Georges de Nantes

(Ps 14.7)    

My dear brother,

After Father Boismard’s book At the dawn of Christianity, before the birth of dogmas, this year we are given an Essay on the origins of Christianity, originating from the same French Biblical School in Jerusalem and written by the Dominican Father Étienne Nodet with the collaboration of Father Justin Taylor of the Society of Mary.

Édouard Cothenet, my esteemed former fellow seminarian, rightly judges that «for him who strives to keep up to date with current research, the manner in which Father Boismard poses problems take us back a long way into the past»… to the times of Loisy! (La Croix, 18 December 1998) Observe that this superficial remark hardly helps us forward… You had already made a critical analysis of this work in a penetrating study whose title ties in with Cothenet’s judgement: The swan song of modernist exegesis (CRC no 312, September 1998, p. 11-18).

This time, Nodet and Taylor "take us back" even further into the past (and are all the more proud for so doing)… to Renan! They attack not our dogmas but our Catholic sacraments, «two fundamental and complementary rites : baptism and the Eucharist, one giving access to the other» (p. VII).

The subtitle of the work, A splinter sect, indicates the outcome of this study. «The origins of these rites are closely associated with the Essenians, among whom baptism called for a course of initiation and whose primary community act was an eschatological meal in which bread and wine, taken in symbolic quantities, were the dominant feature. It was at the heart of this marginal culture that a profound transformation was effected, whose decisive moment was its contact with the pagans.» (ibid.) The first page of the Preface says it all. Notice that the name of Jesus does not even feature in this "transformist" explanation. Nor will His person suffer any better throughout the length of this scholarly 426-page enquiry, which concludes with this profession of faith: «Renan, who under the second Empire could not have known of the discoveries that had accumulated for over a century, was certainly right to say that Christianity is a type of Essenianism that had widespread success.» As disciples of the old apostate, our two religious reproach him with no more than being «too romantic» (p. 420).

So it was, my brother, that you had to take up your pen again and refute all this. The task was indeed arduous, but it was for the honour of Our Lord and His Church. Nevertheless I gave you a reference point, a key idea that would guide you in your critical study: «Salvation comes from the Jews.» This phrase of Jesus (Jn 4.22) should have saved Renan from his error, just as it drew the Samaritan woman away from hers, leading her to adore and love in Him «the Saviour of the world» (Jn 4.42). Ever since Renan, apostasy has made formidable progress. Nodet stuffs his book with references plucked from all quarters and bases himself on an incredible accumulation of scholarly data. His brother Dominican, Father Théry, when referring to his exegetical work on the Koran, spoke of "bucketloads of files"!

It was necessary to give a reply at the highest level, and it seems to me that you have succeeded very well. Nevertheless, your study will seem difficult to our customary readers. So I will provide a brief outline to ease their reading and make it even more fascinating.

*  *  *

To regain the solid ground of our dogmatic faith, which proves to be exactly the same as that of true history, one need only follow the sequence of events according to the chronology established by the documents, as opposed to the turmoil imposed on them by the modernist presuppositions of various authors – yesterday Boismard and the Arte team, and today Nodet and his sidekick, Taylor. Seen in this light, the true history of the origins of Christianity are composed of three main stages. First of all there was the time of Jesus. Then there was that of the Church He founded, which became His immediate successor in the year 30 (let us not forget Bossuet: «The Church is Jesus Christ spread and communicated»). Finally, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Synagogue will rise up to combat both one and the other, both Him and Her.

I. Jesus, the Saviour of the world (Jn 4.42)

… Jesus, who is the source of salvation and who was prefigured by the patriarch Joseph in the Old Testament. Whence the reference, placed as an epigraph to the first part of your study, summarising the whole of Joseph’s mission and explaining why God allowed him to be maltreated by his brothers: it was «to save the lives of many people» (Gn 50.20).

Jesus, the Saviour Son of God, was a Jew born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem in Judaea.

a) The Baptism He received in the Jordan sets its seal on the Old Testament as the definitive "fulfilment" of the crossing of the Red Sea and the entrance into the Promised Land. And this baptism itself is an anticipation and figure of the death which this Saviour was to be engulfed by for the salvation of the world.

In this way He will Himself become living water, providing for the baptism of multitudes of the saved until the end of the world. It is thus that Jesus instituted the sacrament of baptism : by His death on the Cross, whose fruits were entrusted to the ministry of the Apostles on the day of His Ascension. «All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.» (Mt 28.19) «He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.» (Mk 16.16)

b) The Eucharist. From the pierced Heart of Jesus sprung forth not only water, but water and blood. Jesus shed the same blood as that which He had already given to the Apostles to drink on the eve of His Passion, in this way instituting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, "Mysterium fidei". By this sacrament of the Eucharist Jesus makes Himself bodily and physically present under the appearance of supersubstantial bread, broken and distributed among the table companions of the Lord’s Supper.

By His precious Blood He seals once and for all a Covenant between God His Father and the people He has redeemed, a Covenant that was figuratively concluded with Noah at the time of the Flood and renewed with Abraham, Moses and David, but this time it is a new and eternal Covenant, through Him, with Him and in Him.

II. The Church, universal community of salvation

… The Church, through which salvation comes to the whole universe, under the movement of the Holy Spirit, through Baptism and the Eucharist. Whence the epigraph to your second part, referring to the First Letter of Saint John: «For there are three that give witness: the Spirit, the water, and the blood.» (1 Jn 5.7-8)

The Spirit of Pentecost, the Water and the Blood of Baptism and the Eucharist, give witness that the Body of the risen Christ is the holy Place, the unique Place where the Father is adored in Spirit and in Truth (cf. Jn 4.23-24).

The resurrection of Jesus abolishes the barriers raised by men. The mission of Peter to the centurion Cornelius demonstrates this (Ac 10). Fifty days after Easter, in fact, under the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles began to preach, to baptize and to "break the bread" for "great numbers", irrespective of whether they were Jews or pagans.

The Holy Spirit, who had come upon the Virgin Mary on the day of the Annunciation to cover Her with His shadow and to take Her under His powerful protective wings (Lk 1.35), had taken the form of a dove on the day of the Baptism of Jesus (Lk 3.22). But on the day of Pentecost, there was no "form" of a dove, since Mary was there, in Person, communicating to the Apostles the Love, the Light and the Purity radiating from Her Immaculate Heart in the form of "tongues that seemed as of fire" (Ac 2.3) and giving them total confidence. A crowd is converted… three thousand people, Saint Luke tells us. The whole Essenian district! Around Mary they form a single family, a "communion", of which they constitute the greater part, and which takes over from the Essenian "brotherhood" to which they used to belong. But what is absolutely new is the source of this union with God and among themselves : the Holy Sacrifice, offered by Jesus on the Cross, and renewed each day in His memory, constantly establishing and maintaining this holy Community and making expiation for every sin.

The Essenians are well known to us these days thanks to recent discoveries. Today the specialists are obliged to acknowledge what we have never ceased repeating : the Essenians were not a sect, they were the most religious of the Jews¹. André Caquot, honorary professor at the College of France, recognized this unequivocally when answering a question raised by a journalist : «Why is this notion of sect attributed to the Essenians? – The notion is equivocal. I prefer myself to speak of a community of perfection, highly revealing of this particular epoch. Christianity also is a search for perfection in the heart of the old Israel. In my view, these questions of sectarian allegiance are quite secondary when viewed in relation to all that these documents teach us about the mentality of these last zealous pre-Christians. They enlighten us particularly about the language so characteristic of the Gospels such as, for example, the expression "men of good will". The literature of Qumrân enriches our understanding of a substratum that was common to both Judaism and Christianity.²»

III. A breakaway people : Yabné, Pella, Qumrân, Massada

… Although they have persisted in their resistance to the Holy Spirit and have instituted the religion of the Talmud and of... "antichrist", the Jews nevertheless remain our brothers. Their ultimate conversion is promised (Rm 11.25-26), for they are «beloved for the sake of their forefathers» (Rm 11.28). It is a clear case of a dispute among enemy brothers. Whence the epigraph to this third part: «They hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.» (Gn 37.4)

The authorities in Jerusalem believed they had finished with Jesus. But now it all starts up again with Peter multiplying miracles as his Master had done! So, it is time to organise a persecution. Saul of Tarsus is its motivating force, but the Lord converts him by appearing to him on the road to Damascus. The members of the Sanhedrin then turn to Herod and succeed in putting to death James the son of Zebedee, John the Evangelist’s brother, and getting him to arrest Peter. In 62 they stone James, "the brother of the Lord". The Essenians who had become Christians, impatient for the return of their Saviour and alarmed by the violent persecution of their brothers, deserted the Church of Jerusalem in great numbers to return to Moses and the Synagogue, but they will no longer be accepted there. They are not recognised by either side as believers but as false brothers: «they were not of us» (1 Jn 2.19). I imagine that in the last years of Jerusalem, menaced as it was by the advance of the Roman armies, the bravest of them fled into the desert whence they had departed sixty years earlier to settle in Jerusalem. They rebuilt the walls of Qumrân and, as a security measure, they began to store away their unique and priceless treasure: their sacred Books and the Rules of their community. The rest we know through science, not through any Jewish or Christian tradition. These unhappy men, who failed to go all the way in their fidelity to Christ, having been disowned by the Sanhedrin and excommunicated by the Apostles, must have lost themselves amongst the masses of Jerusalem and Judaea as they fled from the Romans. And their trace is lost in history.

The Jewish War will be the punishment for this obstinacy, just as Jesus had prophesied (Mk 13). But it will not put an end to it. Under the protection of the Romans, Yohanan b. Zakkaï founded a school that succeeded the ancient brotherhoods and gave rise to what today we call the "rabbinical tradition". With incredible energy the Pharisees reconstituted a new Jewish "tradition", as their ancestors had done in Babylon! At the same time, the Christians who had escaped from Jerusalem sought out the Churches of the diaspora, ready to welcome them in the name of Christ, the only Saviour of the world.

Final result : salvation returns to the Jews.

This book by Nodet and Taylor is a sad illustration of the apostasy of which the Church today is the theatre, from top to bottom of the hierarchy. It is one more reason for us to listen to the warning of Saint Paul: «Do not boast at the expense of the branches», in other words, the Jews. «If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.» (Rm 11.18) Whence the epigraph to this conclusion, full of invincible hope and predicting the fulfilment of the promise… for the near future! «When Yahweh will bring back his people from exile.» (Ps 14.7)

[Brother Bruno’s article follows, occupying pages 3 to 18. This will all be translated and made available in the printed edition of the English CRC. However, it may be appropriate to present the concluding section here.  - Translator]

SALVATION RETURNS TO THE JEWS

«When Yahweh will bring back his people from exile.» (Ps 14.7)   

In his Letter to the Romans, chapter eleven, Saint Paul observes that, apart from «a small number of the elect», the Jews «became hardened» by the positive will of God. Their unbelief is no more than a «bad stumble» which has been permitted for the conversion of the pagans. In fact, it was because the Jews refused the Gospel that Paul turned to the pagans (Ac 13.5), with a success to which the mass entrance of the Jews into the Church would have presented an obstacle.

However, this infidelity is only temporary. It was ordained for their future conversion. «For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their admission mean if not a resurrection from the dead?» (Rm 11.15)

This coming restoration of Israel is made all the more certain by fact that the small group of the faithful won over from Judaism is like the first fruits that consecrate the whole dough: «Now, if the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.» (11.16)

«Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written: "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob."» (11.25-26)

The dawn of this day perhaps arose in the 18^th century with the foundation of Hassidism by Israel Bal Shem Tov in 1734. At the moment when the "Mystics" were prophesying the great apostasy of the "pagans", the Jews themselves, after seventeen centuries in "exile", turned their eyes towards the coming Messiah, as the Essenians had done two thousand years beforehand.

Until then, writes Schlomoh Brodowicz, "the quasi-totality of rabbinical and exegetical literature had focused on one single horizon and served one single project : the law and the various aspects of daily life which it regulates»³. Not the Decalogue even, but 613 commandments : 365 prohibitions, one for each day of the year, and 248 prescriptions, in accordance with the number of members in the human body⁴. «One might sum up by saying that whereas matters of practicality had been abundantly legislated for, nothing objective had been elaborated in the moral and spiritual sphere.³»

This admission introduces a work of 550 pages recounting the history of a man to whom one would be tempted to give the name of the "Master of Justice" of modern times: «We are at the heart of a period that Jewish tradition terms the "Heel of the Messiah", he said, for the footsteps of the Messiah begin to make themselves heard. Our task now is to hasten the messianic coming and to bring it to its final fulfilment, in such a way that the divine presence once again inhabits the world, this time for eternity.» To those Jews who followed him, he proposed an ideal that can be summarised thus: «They will have no official position and little financial support; they will only be able to count on God, on the blessing of the Rabbi and on their self-abnegation as they face the overriding duty of bringing their brothers back to their inheritance. Nevertheless they will make use of one almost magical instrument that never wears out and which never fails to open every heart : the love of one’s neighbour.⁵»

As seventh Rabbi of Lubavitch, the name of a small town in Byelorussia where his movement had established itself in 1813 after having fled from Napoleon’s armies, Menachem Mendel presided from 1951 to 1954, the date of his death, over a movement of which the Q.G. implanted in New York, south east of Brooklyn, is a type of redivivus Essenian district.

«During the course of the 80s his speeches became more insistent and more concrete, occasionally attaining a certain vehemence. To use his words, the Messiah had changed his status. He was no longer a far off hope, kept alive by daily study and prayer. He was an imminent reality, and it was up to each to establish this reality in actual fact by affirming his faith in it, through a conscience enhanced by its authenticity, accompanied by a revival of charitable works. (…) The word is out and it will echo throughout the world: "Prepare yourselves for the coming of the Messiah."⁶ » Brodowicz comments: «At a time when the other religious leaders, without necessarily having abdicated their faith in redemption, devote themselves to their own institutions, one man, and one man only, did not forget his childhood dream of seeing all his brothers, and the whole world along with them, freed from affliction and tears.»

For us, at a time when apostasy is ravaging the Church, far from being conceited in our wisdom, as Saint Paul warns us about, we should recall that «God has consigned all men to disobedience…» (Rm 11.32). Rabbi Menachem Mendel is himself an illustration of this: at no moment does he turn his expectation of the Messiah in the direction of Him who came twenty centuries ago… He obstinately turns his back on Him. But the Apostle adds: «that He may have mercy upon all.» That is the striking miracle we wait for from our great God and Saviour, through the intercession of the Immaculate, the Mother of us all for ever!

B.B.-E.   

(1) Bruno Bonnet-Eymard, Christians at Qumrân, CRC no 266, March-April 1994, p. 8. –  (2) Conversation with André Caquot, An incredible source of controversy, in Historia spécial, no 56, November-December 1998, p. 28.  –  (3) Schlomoh Brodowicz, L’Âme d’Israël. Les origines, la vie et l’oeuvre de Menahem M. Schneerson, Rabbi de Loubavitch, ed. du Rocher 1998, p. 55.  –  (4) Cf. Nodet, p. 241-247.   –  (5) Brodowicz, p. 240.  –  (6) Ibid., p. 541.

AT MOURE THE DIVINE LOVE WILL TRIUMPH

And so we departed, in spirit at least, for Portugal, Land of the Blessed Mary and land of the Saints. That was on the 8^th December, which for us was the first day of the new year, the Holy Year of the Sacred Heart.

We will arrive at Porto and we will discover the village of Moure which is not far away. Later on we will reach Fatima, naturally! without forgetting to pay a visit to Coimbra. For many good Catholics these names mean little if anything at all. And to think that it is from these singular events – for which these towns and this village formed the theatre and their inhabitants the witnesses – that we await the coming of the Kingdom of the Immaculate throughout the whole earth, soon to be followed by the conversion of Russia and of the "messianic Jews" in a peace never before known! Our foundations must be firm if our confidence is to remain unshaken. The facts, the messages and their meaning must be fully ingrained in us if they are to be successfully communicated to all those whom the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary wishes to draw to Itself through the meagre benefit and unworthy means of our testimony.

But already, one thing is clear. Everything has happened and will happen within the rough boundaries of our generation, let us say of this century, and through the supernatural medium of two holy virgins successively. The first of these was in the service of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to establish the consecration of the world to this Sacred Heart in 1899, and the other was in the service of the Immaculate Conception for the consecration of Russia and the peace of the world… but what a lengthy way of the Cross it has been! and what battles have had to be suffered!

The first of these heroines in the service of Heaven is the Blessed Maria Droste zu Vischering (1863-1899); the second is Sister Mary-Lucy of the Immaculate Heart, still living, constantly suffering and praying for the realisation of so many blessed promises.

So let us study these two certainly magnificent lives, that we may draw some solid lessons from them. And let us be aware that they contain sublime divine secrets on which depend so many things relating to our own personal salvation as well as the salvation of the world. We have five months to respond to this grace.

I. THE BLESSED MARY OF THE DIVINE HEART
A Good Shepherd Sister (1863-1899)

To understand the secret of this confidante and, much more, of this "spouse" of the Sacred Heart, I wish only to consult the biography closest in time to the events, that of the honest and devout chaplain of the Good Shepherd in Angers, the Abbé Louis Chasle. Composed in 1905 (!) we possess a copy of it, the thirteen thousandth, dated 1925! Our appreciation of it is enhanced by the letter of satisfaction and benediction addressed to its author in the name of Saint Pius X by Cardinal Merry del Val, dated 9 December 1905, from Rome. In rare terms it manifests the pleasure – so promptly expressed – of the Holy Pontiff, and it is exceedingly encouraging for the devotees of the Sacred Heart in our wretched times.

May each of us profit from this book, and and let us begin already to suspect the sanctifying potential of this humble masterpiece for our own progress and personal happiness:

A soul wholly on fire with tenderness and devotion

The wonderful grandeur of this soul becomes apparent in the very first lines of this book. We are given a foretaste of the heroic works and extraordinary actions that our God and Father had predestined her to achieve for His Glory and for the salvation of the world, in intimate union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

«God prepares from afar, through His mysterious governance, the great manifestations of His Love. For souls who have entered into glory, it must be a subject of profound wonder to discover the paths taken through the ages by His Providence to govern His Church and call His elect. For us, enlightened by the light of the faith, occasionally we are able to perceive the sequence of His merciful designs, perhaps not in a direct and unmistakable way, but at least with a clarity sufficient to satisfy our reason and gladden our devotion. Thus it is that God, wishing to have in Sister Mary of the Divine Heart Droste du Vischering a spouse worthy of the predilections of His Heart, to whom He might entrust a special mission, was pleased that she be born amongst a people eminently Catholic and in a family long renowned for its numerous services to the Church.» (p. 1-2)

Right away we see our author recalling her parents’ tender and fervent devotion both to Jesus and to Mary, but most sublimely to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The following passage in her Autobiography, quoted in the first few pages of Chasle, is for us, who are already pilgrims to Moure, a sign, an invitation, an encouragement:

«I could never separate devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus from devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and I will never be able to explain the manner and the extent to which the Sacred Heart of Jesus deigned to favour me in the Blessed Sacrament. The Blessed Sacrament was always a Heaven for me, and almost always I visualized Our Lord as this image depicts him. The Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Eucharist was like a radiant sun, drawing me to Him, enlightening me, and inflaming me with love. Usually the graces I received were granted me during Holy Communion or exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and very often they were related to some image of the Sacred Heart.» (p. 8-9)

How can one not be reminded of the apparitions at Moure?

Let us mention other divine favours. During a journey made by her parents to Rome in 1867, she was given the grace of «experiencing, at the tenderest age, the happiness of being a child of the Holy Church» and «the desire to suffer for the conversion of sinners and for the needs of the Holy Church» (p. 11).

Our Lord truly did not lose any time in initiating her, whom He would soon choose for his special "spouse", in the tenderness and devotion that He would require from her with the force of an exceptional love (cf. p. 43):

«I began to understand that love of the Heart of Jesus without a spirit of sacrifice is nothing but an imagination. I began to love sacrifices and even to watch for the opportunity of making them. I wished in this way to unite myself to Him whose spouse I so longed to be.» (p. 19)

Every page of this little book leaves us in admiration before this treasure of mysticism and all-consuming ardour, celebrating both love and sacrifice indissociably in the Object of its adoration, the Sacred Heart in the Blessed Sacrament:

«I had an increasing desire to be not only the spouse but also the victim of the Sacred Heart of Jesus… More and more there grew in me the desire to make reparation for the outrages against His Sacred Heart, as well as to suffer for the conversion of sinners.» (p. 56-57)

A soul mysteriously prepared for the combat of modern times

Her biographer says just enough to situate our heroine in her rightful place within the conflicts and persecutions of the time. I quote from him at length:

«Among the families of the Westphalian aristocracy, one of the oldest was that of the Droste zu Vischering. In ancient times it bore the name Wulfheim. In the 12^th century it replaced it with the title of an office held by its head at the court of the prince-bishops of Munster: the office of seneschal or "dapifer", in German "truchsess" or "droste" and, in the present case, "erbdroste", that is hereditary "droste". Vischering is an old fortified castle, which rises near the town of Lüdinghausen and which, entrusted to the family as a fief around 1272, remained in its possession for more than six hundred years.

«The name Droste-Vischering, happily borne by so many generations, received a new brilliance in the second half of the 19^th century with two prelates who were brothers in a double sense: by blood and by the shared sentiments of a profound piety, inflexible firmness, and ardent zeal for the rights of the Church. The elder, Gaspard-Maximilian, distinguished himself at the "national council" of Paris (1811), at which he took part as auxiliary bishop of Munster, by being the first to ask the Emperor to free Pius VII imprisoned at Savone. The second, Clement-Augustus, archbishop of Cologne, by his firm stance in confronting the errors of Hermes – condemned by the Holy See, but protected by civil authority – and particularly by his approach to the question of mixed marriages, on which he wished to abide faithfully to the decisions of the Holy See, found himself engaged in a sharp conflict with the Prussian government. He was arrested in his palace during the night and despatched to the fortress of Minden, where for eighteen months he suffered a harsh imprisonment. These events aroused powerful emotions throughout the Catholic world. In Rome, before the cardinals gathered in their consistory, Gregory XVI voiced an energetic protest, the most glorious testimony awarded to the archbishop. France also paid him homage, as attested by a tablet preserved in the parish church of Darfeld, underneath which one can read: "Offered by the clergy of Paris to Clement-Augustus, confessor of the faith, 1840." The example of the German Athanasius rallied the Prussian episcopate, and the government had to beat a retreat. The whole world agrees in dating the era of the triumphant resistance of German Catholics from the time of Mgr Droste-Vischering.

«The elder brother of these two prelates, the head of the family and intimate friend, as they both were, of Princess Galitzin and the Count of Stolberg, was himself closely involved with the religious movement of which Munster was at that time the theatre. Both the Church and France owed him much for the welcome he gave the French priests exiled for the faith. He offered a refuge on his property at Darfeld to a colony of Trappists, who founded a monastery there and only left it to return to their country.»

We read in a footnote: «The émigrés – princes, nobles and priests – received a hospitality in Westphalia that was reminiscent of the times of the early Church. According to the memoirs of the Abbé Traizet, there was not a single villager who did not put up at least one French émigré. Two thousand six hundred priests, whose names have been preserved in the Munster registers, passed several years in the country, with no other means than the charity of the inhabitants. A hospice was built for the most elderly of them. One could count up to sixteen bishops who took refuge in Munster. Every Thursday one of the prelates took it in turn to celebrate Holy Mass in one of the town’s main churches, thronged with émigrés, in order to draw down Heaven’s blessings on the country as a reward for all their kind assistance.» (p. 4)

The text continues: «His grandson, Count Droste zu Vischering, was to be the happy father of her who forms the subject of this history. On 5 August 1858 he married the Countess Helen de Galen, who came from a family which belonged to the old Westphalian nobility and which gave the diocese and principality of Munster, in the middle of the 17^th century, the famous prince-bishop Christopher-Bernard de Galen, Louis XIV’s ally against the Dutch. The Countess was the niece of Mgr de Ketteler, the illustrious bishop of Mainz, whose great involvement in political and social matters is still remembered by all. She had three brothers who were priests: two had died in the ranks of the parish clergy, after having spent all their strength in the service of God and of souls; the surviving one, Mgr Maximilian de Galen, is presently auxiliary bishop of Munster [in 1905, the date when the book appeared].

«Maria-Anna-Johanna-Franzisca-Theresia-Antonia-Huberta, the Countess of Droste zu Vischering, was born in 1863, at Munster, in the family house known as Erbdrostenhof. It was the day when the Church celebrated the Nativity of the Most Blessed Virgin.» (p. 2-6)

Born in the midst of conflict, our saint will live through turmoil, alarm and proscriptions, in total harmony with her parents, her bishop uncles, and her Jesuit teachers, the whole of Westphalia having risen up in defence of its liberties, of which the sovereignty of the Holy Church clearly stood out as the most important. The Abbé Chasle does not hesitate to provide generous quotations from the pages of her Autobiography, written in the last stages of her life, a silent witness to her unchanging convictions. Because of what follows, we will need to reproduce these pages here, and how can one not be filled with admiration for them!

«"My father’s journey to Rome for the Vatican Council, and the Kulturkampf which began in 1872, contributed to increase my veneration for the Holy Church. The Fathers of the Society of Jesus and the majority of religious orders that I had known and loved since my childhood were persecuted. The Bishop was even put in prison – not before he had received the marks of the profoundest veneration from those in his diocese – and was finally forced to go into exile. Many parishes remained without a priest. All these sad events increased my enthusiasm for the Holy Church and her ministers. The Bishop of Munster, who had a great devotion to the Heart of Jesus, ordered public prayers to be offered to the Sacred Heart and, before going into exile, he made a solemn consecration of his diocese to the Heart of Jesus in the cathedral of Munster."

«The violent persecution that then fell on the clergy in Germany and especially in Prussia, not only failed to make them yield, but stimulated the Catholic people to renew their trust and attachment to their pastors. In Westphalia particularly the persecution gave rise to a revolt of consciences. After the furniture of the bishop of Munster, Mgr Brinckmann, had been seized, there could not be found a single man in the town to carry it off. The whole diocese rose up in a magnificent movement of protest. Every day for several weeks Munster witnessed the arrival of five or six deputations from every parish: one sent 200 men, another 300, etc. One of the most beautiful demonstrations was given by the inhabitants of Munster. One can understand why the bishop felt some consolation: "What an excellent mission Bismarck has given us!" he would say. "No missionary could ever have done so much. I would like to go down on my knees and thank him!" All this took place in April 1874. A year later, when he came back from Warendorf, where he had been forcibly detained for forty days, it was through streets hung with flags that he made his return to the episcopal palace.

«Maria Droste was very young when the Kulturkampf started, but she found herself better placed and better prepared than many others to experience the emotions stirring her people at that time. To single out one detail only, what impression must the grand-niece of the Droste Vischering and the de Ketteler family have experienced when she received on her First Communion a little cross and a picture of the Blessed Virgin sent to her by the bishop of Posen, Mgr Ledochowsky, then in prison at Ostrowo.» (p. 12-14)

She followed her teachers, the Dames of the Sacred Heart, into exile in Austria, while the persecution of the Kulturkampf intensified. She remained there a little more than two years, from May 1879 to July 1881.

The "fiancée of the Divine Heart" (1883-1888).
A contemporary and sister of Saint Thérèse.

As calm had returned and her poor health required particular care, the Countess Maria Droste zu Vischering returned to the castle in Darfeld to the great joy of her family and particularly Max, her twin brother who had a profound and touching affection for her.

There she lived the life of a recluse and a servant, like a nun in the world, to the very great wonder of all her family circle. Let us read the Abbé Chasle, whose sources of information about his heroine, both documented and firsthand, are numerous:

«In her father’s castle her life remained highly regulated and taken up with serious pursuits. She gave a substantial amount of her time to devotions, also to her studies, to that of religion in the first place, then to the piano and singing in which she excelled, endowed as she was with a strong and delightful voice. She displayed a zeal that took her to the limits of her strength in arranging choruses and enhancing with perfectly practised choral parts the offices celebrated in the chapel at Darfield on Sundays and feast days. She wished to learn Latin, since she saw in it the language of the Church and it seemed to her liturgical mind that an understanding of it was a necessary key to appreciate the beauties of the Missal and the Divine Office. Aided by the chaplain of the castle, she translated the whole of the New Testament, with the exception of the Apocalypse. It was an exercise in interpretation as well as one of translation. Finally she was initiated – in great depth – into the responsibilities and administrative tasks of the household. From this she acquired that understanding of affairs which was so useful for her later on when she had to reorganise a crowded house and, with minimal resources, to face up to constantly recurring difficulties.»

«From 1879 Count Droste-Vischering sat in the Reichstag of the German Empire, in the ranks of the Zentrum. Already the victory of this party, unique in parliamentary history, could be foreseen. Born to defend that most holy of causes, the liberty of the Church, it was passionate about all the great questions of the day, and principally about improving the lot of the workers. By the sole force of its convictions and its unity, gradually it grew from being a powerless minority to become the arbitrator of the Empire’s politics. In January 1882 a motion by its leader, the illustrious Windthorst, demanding the return from exile of the members of the secular clergy, was supported by two thirds of the Reichstag. Maria was present at this memorable session. At its conclusion the "little Excellence" [term applied to Windthorst to distinguish him from the corpulent Bismarck, the "large Excellence" - ed.] cried out, a little prematurely no doubt: "The Kulturkampf is dead. There is nothing to do but bury it!"» (p. 24-25)

Two years passed during which the perfection of daily life and the practice of asceticism were combined without any flaw, either of severity or weakness. During this time her younger ten-year-old sister was likewise applying herself under the guidance of her sisters, that is the future Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Thérèse Martin, whose Story of a Soul will every year become more closely aligned with the Autobiography of the Countess Maria. I am quite unable to say which of these two lives is the greater or who displayed the more heroic virtue. And our Canadian friends will reproach me for not mentioning their holy rival, Blessed Dina Bélanger from Quebec (1897-1929), in religion Mary Saint-Cecilia of Rome, of the Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus-Mary. Read her life after theirs, and you will believe that all three were copied from the same model, from the perfection of the purest and most heroic love!

And so, since our Countess (for in Westphalia titles of nobility are a privilege shared by all the members of the family) continued to be prevented from entering a convent, she obtained permission from he spiritual directors, admirable Jesuits if ever such there were! to make a vow of perpetual virginity on Christmas Day 1883.

«She felt, after this act, that she had attained the essence of her vocation. "By this act", she said, "I achieved what I had so greatly desired. I became the spouse of Our Lord".» (p. 39)

We will pass over the next period of her life in which she was waiting to enter the Good Shepherd in Munster, nor will we mention her noviciate in the years 1889-1891, years of a hard road towards that perfect asceticism of a soul which had already experienced full proof of the most passionate love of her Spouse Jesus Christ. It is from this moment that the account of her immolation as a victim of love for Love Itself and for the salvation of souls becomes deeply moving.

But one of the brothers will perhaps tell you that one can find pearls of the same kind in the life of the "little Thérèse", and one of the Canadian sisters will no doubt wish to cite other treasures found in the life of the Blessed Mary Saint-Cecilia of Rome…

These are riches which we will keep for later. For now I must not lose sight of our main concern, that of placing the great events of Portugal in relation to one another, the better to conjecture, hope for, and hasten by our prayers their marvellous conclusion.

Now, our dear Countess has only just made her final profession at the Good Shepherd in Munster, which is not in Portugal! So let us pass swiftly through the fourth chapter, The mistress of penitents, and the fifth, From Munster to Lisbon, noticing as we go any indications of things to come, any providential events or confidences between Jesus and His veritable spouse, amidst so may outpourings of a truly incomparable love…

Here are the main events. After the noviciate came thirty months living as a fully professed sister at the Good Shepherd in Munster (we are still there). Her responsibilities rapidly became overwhelming – the House was busy rehabilitating four hundred "children" (!) who were either reformed or in the process of becoming so. However, her sicknesses did not allow her time to put her mind to this, and all the while she was besieged with temptations, casting her into strange scruples, doubts and remorse, concerning her vocation to active works of charity. Did she not rather aspire to a prayer life of pure contemplation? But that was impossible at the Good Shepherd!

It was nothing more than a temptation. Her inner life, guided and supported by her admirable Mothers and her no less wise confessors and Fathers, did not suffer any disturbance, but was on the contrary inflamed by the constant amorous confidences of the Spouse to His veritable spouse, whom at the same time He nourished on His own substance as she beheld or received His Eucharistic Sacrament.

On 21 January 1894 we see her appointed to the Good Shepherd of Lisbon in Portugal. She could not speak the language, nor did she know anything about the country or anyone in it. «She left like a queen», said those who witnessed her departure, little suspecting how her wrenched heart wept. The journey was a physical and moral calvary, during which the Spouse constantly sustained his weak but heroic spouse.

Let us pick a few ears of wheat before gathering in the sheaves:

«Sister Mary of the Divine Heart, having arrived in Paris, visited Our Lady of Victories and Montmartre. At the feet of the Blessed Virgin she prayed for a long while on behalf of the Good Shepherd in Munster, especially for her dear children, all of whom she mentioned individually by name. At Montmartre she spoke with her Divine Spouse and offered herself up to Him unreservedly for the salvation of souls. Beneath these imposing vaults, erected by the offerings of the whole nation, and which tower above one of the greatest cities in the world, one has the sense, amidst the unending groups of pilgrims coming in adoration both night and day, that the Sacred Heart – whose majestic image stands high above the monstrance – is truly the king of the human race. Such was the impression of our devout traveller. The monstrance aptly displayed a radiating heart: "Yes", she said to herself, "that is indeed how it must be! The Sacred Heart of Jesus must reign over the entire world!" Later on, the memory of this pilgrimage would fill her with enthusiasm and gratitude.» (p. 142)

It was an initial touch of grace, subsequently to be confirmed by many others, and we know the result : that request for the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart, her divine and ultimate mission, which no one in those times, or even in ours, seems to have grasped the true measure of…

Whilst on pilgrimage to Saint Ignatius, in the grotto of Manresa, she experienced a new grace and new insights: «There she made her confession and heard an exhortation that spread a powerful light in her soul: "I do not remember", she said, "ever having so well understood and ever having so clearly and so distinctly recognised the will of God."

«A few moments afterwards, she knelt down in the grotto itself, and beneath these slabs of rock, which formerly witnessed the Saint’s conversations with Jesus and Mary, she was in her turn favoured by the intimacy of the Divine Master. While she was praying, she heard a voice asking her if she were ready to sacrifice herself to save one of the Good Shepherd houses that was in great danger. Three times the same request was addressed to her. Overcoming her turmoil, and without knowing which house this might be, she replied that she accepted. There is no doubt that we must connect these details with the following lines in which the servant of God, speaking two or three years later about supernatural communications received at another sanctuary, compares them to those of "Manresa, when I was seized with an urgent desire for suffering and sacrifice, when Our Lord presented me with the whole weight of the cross, which I accepted with a holy ardour, and when the labours at Porto were set before me". "What happiness.", she wrote the next day, "I had a sense of strength as I knelt in this place, which had always been such an object of veneration for me! This grace alone repays all my sacrifices, and yet it is not the only one that God has granted me. As for my spirits, I am very well, and there is no union more intimate with Our Lord than the Cross and Holy Communion. I have both one and the other. The more our nature suffers, the more the supernatural life increases, and I recognise that it is a supernatural grace that God made me drink all the bitterness of the chalice to its dregs, so that He might Himself be my God and my all."

«From that moment the correspondence of Sister Mary of the Divine Heart begins to recover its normal tone. A few days later she wrote, "I am unable to express how greatly I admire the way God leads me, and how pleased I am that it is He who has called me to Portugal. When I left Munster, everything seemed dark and gloomy. The only light that remained to me was the conviction that I was in the hands of God and was accomplishing His will. On a natural level, my new mission was wholly repugnant to me. But now I sense how good God is to us when we search only for Him".» (p. 146-148)

The absolute Victim of an absolute Love

Having left her past behind her, but still having no idea or mental picture of what was waiting for her in Portugal, her absolute love for the Eucharistic Sacred Heart of Jesus inspired the following words from her: «Yes, obedience can impose sacrifices that are more painful than death. But God gives us strength and courage when we count not on ourselves, but on Him alone, and when we are ready to sacrifice all without wishing to retain anything for ourselves.» These were her last recommendations to her sisters in the Munster noviciate, as she asked them to «pray for their poor little exiled sister» (p. 144).

She is now thirty years old; her bearing is queenly; her eyes and voice are magnificent; she carries all the traces of her illness and of a thousand trials; she remembers the gruelling years behind her and is apprehensive of the responsibilities before her. But, what strikes me about the few photographs taken of her during her journey, is her face. It is that of a spouse of a blood Spouse, ready to give Him the ultimate testimony of her love in the supreme sacrifice that she knows He will make her undergo… in Portugal, within six years, for the salvation of the world in the 20^th century.

Brother Georges of Jesus  

OUR FRIEND FATHER JOSEPH HAMON

† IN MEMORIAM    18 March 1904 - 5 January 1999

These words opened a correspondence which will last for more than 33 years, and on that 21 June 1965 there began a very candid priestly friendship which we, the brothers, had the good fortune to observe and even to derive a little benefit from. But this first letter did not let us guess what a worthy servant of the Church and what a holy religious its author was. We were to learn that only gradually.

Father Hamon was born to a holy family, large but poor, on 18 March 1904; he was therefore given the name of Joseph. It was the time of the Combes government, and in his very first years at school he came into confrontation with one of those teachers who had been sent to Brittany by the government in order to root out the faith. One day he was to hear that God did not exist. «This made the earth seem desolate to me and life absurd.» He passed his thoughts on to the teacher, who responded by violently boxing his ears.

His parents sent him to boarding school with the Eudists, at the Saint Saviour College in Redon, where, to his very great joy, the Fathers refuted point by point the lies of the teacher. From that time he wished to be a missionary so that he, in his turn, might save souls from the snares of freemasonry.

Here is the next part of this letter:

He himself tells us whence came this love for the Sacred Scriptures:

Eventually he knew nine languages, ranging from Breton to Russian! He will pursue his studies in Germany, at Coblence and then at Munich, where he was presented to the nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, with whom he had several very open and amicable discussions – in Germany initially and then at Rome when Cardinal Pacelli became Pope – on the subject of communist expansion, which was the great concern of Pius XII.

It was at Rome in fact that Father Hamon completed his exegetical studies and prepared his doctorate at the Biblical Institute. That was in 1935. He will return after the war and will remain there up to 1969 as a tutor to students, superior of the ProCuria, then general Procurator and second Assistant of the Congregation.

And what a joy it was for us to learn quite recently that he was, while in Rome, the postulator for the cause of the beatification of Mother Mary of the Divine Heart (!) as well as of Mother Mary Amelia Fristel, the foundress of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary.

As secretary to Mgr Gouet, Archbishop of Rennes, he was responsible for translating into Latin the preparatory texts of the Council. It was there that he began to lose his eyesight, for the preparatory commission demanded flawless work with no typing errors, and he applied himself to it scrupulously using a bad typewriter and in poor lighting conditions. This preparatory work, he confided to us later, was «remarkable» and reflected a unity in the faith and such doctrinal sure-footedness that John XXIII thought that the Council would be no more than a brief albeit striking manifestation of the Catholic Church, gradually attracting the schismatics of the East and the Anglicans, and even the atheists.

But along came the "October Revolution", which Father Hamon witnessed with astonishment. Here is the next part of this same letter of 1965:

His sight was already failing when the Council opened, so he was less involved with the translation work during its sessions. But not so little as to spare him the shock of seeing the Church defined as "the people of God" («but that is democracy in the Church!»), then collegiality, religious liberty and ecumenism. For example, he witnessed the cynical intervention of the Jesuit Fr Martelet telling the Council Fathers : if you wish to base religious liberty on God, you will obviously never succeed, because the relation between God and Christ and the Church is direct and rules out State secularism as well as ecumenism. «God must therefore be put in parentheses (sic) and your schema must be based on human dignity», a proposal which everyone found acceptable.

He was overjoyed to discover our Father’s analyses of the Council and, little by little, the whole extent of our "school of thought"! His admiration was initially based on our Father’s demonstrable knowledge of Sacred Scripture. He a professor (!) did not hesitate to describe himself as his "disciple":

On this subject he had written a letter which our Father considers the most precious of all and which is jealously preserved in our archives:

When our Father printed his Mémoires et Récits, he gave him no rest until they were published as volumes. Then there was his enthusiasm for the Sacred History of sweet holy France:

At Plancoët he continued to be the missionary he had always dreamed of being as a child, preaching untiringly in the diocese up until that time when, having become blind and deaf, he lived entirely in God. One day he assured me that it was a genuine joy for him to have no other occupation now than that of prayer – while saying this, he showed me his rosary – and that he prayed with all his heart for our Father, «the great apologist of the faith», and for us, his spiritual sons and daughters.

What did he hope for? A good Pope! «John Paul I, he said, was shown to us, but not given to us», and he hoped for another John Paul I, not only ostensus [shown] but datus [given], another Saint Pius X, another Gregory VII…

When he first became acquainted with our Father, he was close to despair. In one of his first letters, he wrote:

His last letters, on the contrary, show him to be totally confident and at peace. Our Father had given him back his hope.

His last words were for us; before he pronounced his nunc dimittis, he wanted to be assured that we would remain firm. It was the 70^th anniversary of his priesthood.

Brother Gerard of the Virgin