|
THE LEAGUE
 IN
THE FOOTSTEPS
OF SAINT
PAUL
from Jerusalem
to Rome
What occupies all our thoughts here is the Church,
the honour of the Church, the exaltation of the Church. When our Father
was considering a title for the works of Brother Michael and of Brother
Francis summarising “forty years of Catholic Counter-Reform”, he chose
FOR
THE CHURCH.
Today, what fills our Father’s heart is that same
divine jealousy which inspired Saint Paul in his struggle against his
unfaithful Corinthians. «I only wish you were able to support a little
foolishness from me. But of course: you are tolerant towards me. You see,
the jealousy that I feel for you is God’s own jealousy: I arranged for you
to marry Christ so that I might give you away as a chaste virgin to this
one husband. But the serpent with his cunning, seduced Eve, and I am
afraid that in the same way your ideas may get corrupted and turned away
from simple devotion to Christ. Because any newcomer has only to proclaim
a new Jesus, different from the one that we preached, or you have only to
receive a new Spirit, different from the one you have already received, or
a new Gospel, different from the one you have already accepted – and you
welcome it with open arms. As far as I can tell, these arch-apostles have
nothing more than I have. I may not be a polished speechmaker, but as for
knowledge, that is a different matter; surely we have made this plain,
speaking on every subject in front of all of you»… in forty volumes and
four thousand hours of conferences (see our Catalogue)!
And Saint Paul was already denouncing those who
preached a new evangelisation, censuring them in a vigorous manner: «These
people are counterfeit apostles, they are dishonest workmen disguised as
apostles of Christ. There is nothing unexpected about that; if Satan
himself goes about disguised as an angel of light, there is no need to be
surprised when his servants too disguise themselves as the servants of
righteousness. They will come to the end that they deserve.» (2 Co 11.1-6,
13-15)
We are not Saint Paul. «But if we were saints», sighs
our Father, «we would be infinitely more vigorous in defending the honour
of Christ and His martyrs. A Father de Montfort would go on foot to Rome
and throw himself on the knees of the Pope: “Most Holy Father, return and
confirm your brothers”…
– No, Father! A Father de Montfort would find the
Bronze Door barred by the Italian police, that is, if he had not already
been committed to a mental asylum.»
THE APOTHEOSIS OF JOHN XXIII
This June began with the meeting of the cardinals in
Rome and the apotheosis of John XXIII.
When he read the newspaper reports of this sterile
seminar of cardinals and saw the triumphal procession of John XXIII in
Saint Peter’s, our Father remained speechless, as one is before a sudden
unexpected disaster or before the words and gestures of one who has lost
his mind and makes absurd, uncontrollable decisions. Distress, stupefaction, indignation and
ultimately silence as though before some great disaster.
It was the canonisation of the Council that John Paul
II was pursuing through this apotheosis. But Brother Bruno sees in this
rather the literal fulfilment of the Third Secret of Fatima: the corpse of
John XXIII held in honour by the corpses of the city half in ruins. Of his
life the journalists have nothing to say except that he opened the windows
of the Church to modernity and let fresh air into the house. It is hardly
enough to make a saint.
Several months earlier, with no other
splendour
than that of the homage of a people who were not deceived, our beloved
Pius IX had himself been exposed in a glass reliquary and led in a
procession full of fervour and devotion to Senigallia, the land of his
birth, and to Loreto, where the Blessed Virgin had spoken to his
childlike heart.
«Every year, we read in The Message of the Santa
Casa, when his parents made the decision to go up to Loreto from Senigallia, he
was unable to sleep for thinking about this. Between the walls of
the Holy House, the young Mastai Ferretti made the Madonna a vow to
embrace the priesthood. And when he was elected Pope on 16 June
1846, he took his pectoral cross and his ring and sent them to the
sanctuary of Loreto. On 14 August 1855, he had a copy of the bull of the
proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception taken there, signed
in his own hand.»
And quite naturally the author of this article
directs his reader’s thoughts towards the Blessed Virgin who was, for him
also, the Star of his pontificate.
As for genuine modernity, here is an example: in his
apostolic letter of 26 August 1852 which he devoted to the sanctuary of
Loreto, Pius IX gave a scientific and historical explanation of the
translation of the Santa Casa:
«Among all the churches raised in honour of the Most
Blessed and Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, the Holy House of Loreto
shines out in a marvellous manner…
«It is honoured and venerated, this House of
Nazareth so dear to God’s Heart, and which, constructed in Galilee, was later
uprooted from its foundations and, in accordance with His Good Pleasure,
transported by land and sea over a great distance, first to Dalmatia and
then to Italy. No one should be surprised, therefore, if from the
beginnings of Christianity, men gave the Holy House the form of a church,
surrounding it with the greatest veneration and visiting it
uninterruptedly over the centuries with sentiments of faith.» Under the
wise leadership of Blessed Pius IX, true science went hand in hand with
the true faith (cf. English CRC no 280, November 1995).
GAUDIUM DE VERITATE
After that came the Pentecost conference of the
Phalange: “Phalangist morals in 150 Points”. Gaudium de veritate! There
was general enthusiasm for the plenum of the truth, but also for
the speaker, our Father on a large screen, acting and imitating with
extraordinary alacrity all the people whose life and thought illustrated
his demonstrations. What a spectacle! You should see our Father imitating
the baker woman of Glux or of Chônas gently bemoaning the fact that at the
end of every month her customers would ask for credit: «We are not going to refuse
them, monsieur le Curé, they are old customers, and then again
they are not well off… But they do not realise…» Extraordinary humanity of
this village life, a life based on the family.
“Family”… this is the word which is going to govern
the whole edifice of society, in “ecological prudence”, a true savoir-vivre, under the eye of God.
This new and most ancient society, so full of graces,
the family of families, can be recognised in the person of its King, the
chief figure of the father of the family. The bond of its unity is: the
Catholic faith, the parish its spiritual family, its parish priest, the
living presence of the bishop, and «over and above everything else, the papacy». It is
a Catholic society in which money does not predominate, only
charity.
Nevertheless, I am not sure whether our young people
will have fully understood the revolutionary character of these 150 Points
which tear the mask off secularism, totalitarian democracy, and the
enormous tedium and dreariness of State socialism.
The world into which our Father introduced us is, on
the other hand, a world that is extraordinarily human, full of joy and
fraternal, ultimately free. Governed by the noble Catholic faith, in the
tranquillity of the protective order, the Nation and the Church are ready for
the peaceful conquests of charity, missionary, colonial and invigorating.
But above all, the 150 Points represent the application and
demonstration of the fruitfulness of the relational philosophy. Here
the
person is defined by the place his divine vocation allots him in his family
line, in the Church and in the Nation, his vocation as a member of a
Body. His whole dignity lies in fidelity to his fathers, to his teachers and
brothers, and through them to Christ, to whom he vows himself, devotes
himself, gives himself, consecrates himself, already receiving from Him
the image of eternity.
It is the perfect antidote to revolutionary
individualism, to comfortable democratic egoism, falsely popular but in
reality inhuman.
I can only find one expression to define this life:
it is the civilisation of love.
This love is translated among us today by a perfect
unity, belonging as it were to a single spirit, resistant to every assault.
THE THREE WHITENESSES
There are certain words that speak to a predestined
soul. Our Father gave the example of that child who, while certainly not of good
birth, felt himself attracted, captivated by the mere mention of the word
Catholic, a word which his own family would never pronounce except with
hatred. The three whitenesses speak in the same way to every truly
Catholic heart: the Eucharist, the Immaculate, the Pope. It is an
infinite source of happiness for us to be accused and dragged before
popular tribunals on account of these three beloved whitenesses, the three
precious pearls of our Catholicism… It is in this way that we find ourselves
following the footsteps of Saint Paul as he made his way from Jerusalem
to Rome, calling upon Roman justice to defend him against the pack of dogs intent on his destruction.
«Some days later, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived in
Caesarea and paid their respects to Festus. Their visit lasted several
days, and Festus put Paul’s case before the king. “There is a man here”,
he said, “whom Felix left behind in custody, and while I was in Jerusalem
the chief priests and elders of the Jews laid information against him,
demanding his condemnation. But I told them that Romans are not in the
habit of surrendering any man until the accused confronts his accusers
and is given an opportunity to defend himself against the charge”…
«So the next day Agrippa and Bernice arrived in great
state and entered the audience chamber attended by the tribunes and the
city notables; and Festus ordered Paul to be brought in. Then Festus said,
“King Agrippa, and all here present with us, you see before you the man
about whom the whole Jewish community has petitioned me, both in Jerusalem
and here, loudly protesting that he ought not to be allowed to remain
alive. For my part I am satisfied that he has committed no capital crime,
but when he himself appealed to the august emperor I decided to send him.
But I have nothing definite that I can write to his Imperial Majesty about
him; that is why I have produced him before you all, and before you in
particular, King Agrippa, so that after the examination I may have
something to write. It seems to me pointless to send a prisoner without
indicating the charges against him”…
«I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, said
Saint Paul, in that it is before you I am to answer today all the charges
made against me by the Jews… It is for my hope in the promise made by God
to our ancestors that I am on trial… saying nothing more than what the
prophets and Moses himself said would happen: that the Christ was to
suffer and that, as the first to rise from the dead, he was to proclaim
that light now shone for our people and for the pagans too…» (Ac 25-26)
And for the third time, he recounted the miracle that had led to his faith
and conversion on the road to Damascus.
This same dazzling light threw seventy thousand people
to their knees on 13 October 1917 at Fatima, and it was for the whole
Church that it shone, confirming Heaven’s will to establish in the world
devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
And of this we are the witnesses!
PHALANGIST FIDELITY
Today our Father is reaping from our phalangist
friends what he has been sowing for forty years. This is the secret of
their fidelity.
Over the years, they have learned of our devotion to
the Immaculate. This is the same as that of Saint Bernard and Duns Scotus,
of Saint John Eudes and Father de Montfort – of whom the Sisters of the
Providence in Dinan used to say that it took the place for him of a
dominant passion; it is the same as that of Blessed Pius IX, Saint Pius X
and Saint Maximilian-Mary Kolbe. «The Immaculate is the doorway between God and
the creature», the latter would say. «She is the faithful reflection of divine perfection and holiness… We may affirm that the Immaculate is in a
certain sense the incarnation of the Holy Spirit… that everything in the
universe is accomplished in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit through the Immaculate.» Our devotion is that of Saint Catherine
Labouré, Saint Bernadette and the holy children of Fatima. Finally, it is
that of John Paul I who promised to be a son obedient to every
wish of Her Immaculate Heart.
As for our Father’s Eucharistic realism, it has never
attained the level of that of Saint John Chrysostom: «Consider the honour
to which you have been raised, the table at which you sit. What
the Angels behold trembling, what they dare not contemplate directly on
account of the splendour radiating from it, this we make our food,
this we unite ourselves to, and so we become one body and one flesh with
Christ.» As for Saint Ambrose, he simply applies to the Eucharistic Communion these
words from Genesis: «The two will become one flesh.»
Everything is pure for those who are pure, everything
is a scandal for the Pharisees. «Nothing in the world is immune from
contradiction by sad and petty minds. And in anything, no matter how good it
may be, one can always find something to object to if one wants to chip away at it.»
That was the experience of Saint Francis de Sales.
Our Eucharistic faith is that of Father de Foucauld
and Saint Peter Julian Eymard, whose lives our children can meditate on in
this year’s beautifully written booklets for Lent and the month of the
Sacred Heart.
Fidelity to the Pope? Here is the cross of our Father’s
whole life – apart from the divine surprise of the
thirty-three years of John Paul I’s pontificate –, as it was for his parents at the time of the NON POSSUMUS. But our unswerving appeal
to Roman justice is sufficient to prove our genuine Catholicism. As the
Abbé Berto once said, «Monsieur l’abbé, you are Roman».
And here is what one of our friends says:
«I must tell you that three years ago I had put all
my hope and my phalangist enthusiasm in this ultimate recourse to the
Apostolic Signatura which, following your lead, I saw as the last bastion
of Law, the preserver of Justice in the Church, capable of resisting the
errors of the Holy See and of recognising the abuse of power.
«Then, as time passed and there was no news, I began
to think that this Appeal would remain unanswered due to the
embarrassing
situation in which the strength of your case had placed them: at least we
were
protected by the suspensive effect. I now see that the Tribunal is made up
of functionaries just like the others.
«Shall we therefore despair of the Church? God
forbid. You have taught us all too well to love that divine je ne sais
quoi which our Mother still possesses, even though she is sick. We may be
standing outside in the porch, but we will continue to beckon the
passers-by to come in.
«No, this news at first filled me with compassion for
you, – poor Father! once again he finds himself in an apparently
inextricable situation, a decision very heavy to bear! – and
then I invoked the Holy Spirit asking Him once again to inspire you with a
response that was salvific and supernatural, avoiding both schism and
apostasy.
«But I also asked Him to inspire you with a
total trust. Without doubt the Good God wishes to extract from you the
most heroic submission to His will, now that you have lost the support of
the Law. For this reason, looking beyond the legal setback, I wish to
follow you in that spirit of yours which is above all mystical and which makes you
think of
Heaven first rather than of earth.
«Your sermon at the Mutualité referring us to
Saint John’s Apocalypse was exemplary. I found it particularly touching,
for my first conversion goes back to your retreat in 1974, partly followed
in community. It was your commentary on the exhortation to Laodicea, “You
are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm!” which immediately cured me of my
liberalism, my reservations and my hesitation in committing myself to
follow you. That day I decided to become your disciple, so that I would
not remain lukewarm, and I have never regretted this.
«This year, at the Mutualité, it was the exhortation
to perseverance which stirred me: “Remain faithful unto death!”
«This imminent new repudiation from Rome led me to
review the reasons that decided me to follow you, to have the courage
to
follow your example and to resist the injunctions of Peter’s successor.
«Two maxims sum up its legitimacy: “The Pope may not
be judged by anyone, except he be called to task for having deviated from
the faith.” (Gratian)
«The other is from you: “The suspicion of heresy
justifies our withdrawal of obedience.”
«It is clear, it is sufficient to resolve the issue
of conscience.
«There remains the central question of the cult of
man and religious liberty – closely connected – which Authority
refuses to settle.
«Then there is this series of unprecedented gestures:
Assisi, Jerusalem, Damascus. They are like so many blots disfiguring the
dear face of our Mother and revealing on the surface the disease which is eating her
away from the inside.
«I was particularly struck by one recent detail: the
list of topics covered in the extraordinary consistory, eleven topics
relating to sociology, culture and communication, and not a single topic
about the Catholic faith!
«What a contrast with the teaching and ardent
impulses of our dear Albino Luciani!
«But I have run out of time, and I have not told you
the half of what I wanted to say to you: my enthusiasm for all these editions of
Resurrection, for the fervent commentaries on the Gospel by Brother Bruno
and our Blessed Father de Foucauld, for the heroic virtues of the models
recounted by Brother Thomas: General de Sonis and John Paul I, and always
of course for your latest thinking on Fatima.
«I cannot restrain the flood of my affection and
total filial trust in you, my admiration for everything you have given us to
love, and above all, my boundless gratitude for the “highroad” you have
followed for forty years which has kept us safe under the protective
mantle of the Immaculate…»
Saint John replies to this excellent friend as he did
to the church of Laodicea: «Those who prove victorious I will allow to
share my throne, just as I took my own place on the throne of my
Father…»
Brother Gerard of the Virgin |
He is called Brother Peter Zhou Bangjiu.
His charming smile is like a reflection of that of our dear Albino
Luciani. He expresses the joyous fidelity and heroic patience of our
persecuted brothers in China as well as their invincible hope in the
final victory of the Catholic faith. In a stirring autobiographical
account, “Dawn Breaks in the East, twenty-six years in the prisons of
Communist China” (Serenity, 1992, 176 pages), this Chinese
Benedictine, today aged 75 and living with his brothers in California,
recounts «the great and holy battle for the Catholic faith» which he
waged in his country for thirty-three years.
PRELUDE
TO THE CONFRONTATION