The people crowding the road to Jerusalem and rendering homage to Our Lord riding on an ass's colt did not grasp the real meaning of their gesture. They dreamed of secular kingship and dominion, imprisoned as they were by their narrow conception of an earthly Messiah. They could not understand that this triumphal entrance was the overture of the drama of the Passion, when Christ was to establish His kingship by dying upon the Cross. The views of men are too often limited by their trivial human perspectives. They reduce the highest realities to their sad level, and stagnate in their misery by diminishing the scope of supernatural mysteries. They thus become incapable of grasping the true measure of the Redemptive Incarnation and of accepting it and subjecting their lives to it in order to receive the graces of salvation.
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
The people crowding the road to Jerusalem and rendering homage to Our Lord riding on an ass's colt did not grasp the real meaning of their gesture. They dreamed of secular kingship and dominion, imprisoned as they were by their narrow conception of an earthly Messiah. They could not understand that this triumphal entrance was the overture of the drama of the Passion, when Christ was to establish His kingship by dying upon the Cross. The views of men are too often limited by their trivial human perspectives. They reduce the highest realities to their sad level, and stagnate in their misery by diminishing the scope of supernatural mysteries. They thus become incapable of grasping the true measure of the Redemptive Incarnation and of accepting it and subjecting their lives to it in order to receive the graces of salvation.
Only the Redemptive Incarnation of Christ confers on man his true greatness. On Calvary, Our Lord has not only healed the purulent wounds of our souls, but has also adopted us as children of our Father in Heaven. Henceforward, we are divinely ennobled and we share in the intimacy of the Trinity through that divine friendship that is sanctifying grace. We must not fall. We must pray God to remain faithful to the grace we have received, because without it we are no more than deeply ravaged beings, deadly wounded by original sin and our personal sins. Our nature, carrying in itself the visible marks of these gaping wounds, is impotent to dress them, and able only to make them fester. Only the divine power of grace can heal us, as man without grace is no more than a cripple. Thus, the most heinous crime conceivable is to cut man off from the mystery of the Incarnation. This disgrace amounts to closing for him the gates of heaven. A purely natural act, whatever its value, cannot save a man; even more, it is only an instrument of damnation.
This simple truth, almost completely forgotten today, is however well known by Satan who, as the prince of lies, is the true instigator of Naturalism, the pernicious and dreadful doctrine that dominates our age, penetrating all domains, even religion! This error allows the devil to take away the Incarnation without directly opposing it. He knows perfectly well that it is useless to launch a frontal attack against this mystery central to Catholicism. He could not manage to destroy Christendom or the Church by mocking the mystery or by giving rise to heresies that deny or deform it. But it is characteristic of his infernal genius to take supernatural truths and to give them an exclusively natural signification. The terms do not change, but their content becomes totally different, for it is impossible to change the end of something without having to change the thing itself. Naturalism is no more than the corruption of the supernatural. It is hence all the more to be feared, since, as the saying goes, "the perversion of the best is a/ways the worst."
Naturalism contents itself with denying original sin. The Redemptive Incarnation disappears before this false immaculate nature, so seductive for man, since he is no longer obliged to fight tirelessly against his true fallen nature! All of his aspirations become good and licit, and his perfection consists in following all his desires and fighting against whatever opposes them, in the name of his inalienable rights, freedom, tolerance, democracy, and even in the name of God Himself, who, as He has not been officially denied, becomes man's supreme alibi, lulling his conscience to sleep!
"Confusing nature and grace in a perverted manner," as the First Vatican Council teaches in its Constitution Unigenitus, this doctrine surreptitiously tries to replace the true religion, carefully preserving all the external finery. Thus, many today talk of a new evangelization, which is, in fact, no more than a derivation of the notion of a new Christendom, dear to the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who earnestly wished that the Church would baptize the Revolution and then marry herself to it! Supernaturally, it is true that liberty, fraternity and equality in God, thanks to the Redemptive Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, are beautiful and profound realities. But once perverted, they are a dangerous ferment of deadly errors, because when the natural and supernatural planes are not distinguished, great confusion reigns, and Satan moves in to become master of the souls.
Consecrated in the Renaissance, Naturalism destroyed the union of Throne and Altar by successive revolutions, and later infiltrated Holy Mother Church herself and dismantled the sacred sanctuary of the Faith. Asphyxiated souls are today weakened and desperately seek for the supernatural nourishment that would allow them to be united with God by Our Lord Jesus Christ. What remains now of the Incarnation and of its saving power?
Man is dying, a victim of these repeated attacks. Man's spirit, penetrated by these false principles, judges of things and men only by natural criteria. The supernatural perspective having been done with, there only remains the pursuit of carnal satisfaction, which is necessarily transient and unsatisfying because nature, cut off from the supernatural, is no more than a mutilated reality. The supernatural heals what is natural, ennobles it and gives it its true balance. Left to itself, nature begets only bestiality and its miserable retinue of sensual pleasures. It certainly does not lead to happiness, as Rev. Fr. de Chivre has written: "The multiplication of pleasures is only a diminution of happiness."
Our age, daughter of this occult denial of the mystery of the Incarnation, is characterized by a monstrous loss of transcendence. Vulgarity is everywhere rampant, polluting everything with its ignoble and sensual triviality. The flesh holds sway and grasps man in its powerful claws, who finds himself totally dominated by carnal attractions. Only the material aspect of things captures his intelligence, subjecting him to the coarse power of matter. Deceived by fallacious promises of freedom, man has abandoned the sweet yoke of Christ and turned away from the law of redemptive Incarnation, only to become a slave of the law of the flesh. The kingship of the Incarnation, whose throne is Faith, whose scepter is Hope and whose crown is Charity, has been succeeded by the tyranny of the flesh, dominated by the omnipotence of the Law and its obligations, which are increasingly more arbitrary, draconian and small-minded. As man cannot live without religion, the religion of the Law has replaced the religion of Charity. Nature is no more healed and elevated by the supernatural, but it rather absorbs and alters the supernatural. Man lives in a perpetual illusion of freedom, while he is ruthlessly chained to the service of the Law.
When nothing remains of the Incarnation, man becomes a plaything of Satan and his henchmen.
Let this Holy Week give us the grace of coming back to Our Lord with our whole soul, so that, washed in the Blood of His mercy, we may joyfully accept His yoke, to find again the holy liberty of the children of God and the strength to battle against the works of darkness.
In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux
News from the Seminary
Everyone at the Seminary lives now focused on the Liturgy, actively preparing the Holy Week ceremonies. We will spend the first days of the week on retreat, recollecting our souls and imposing silence on them, in order to unite ourselves to the sufferings of Our Lord and to understand, thanks to the beauty and divine force of the Liturgy, how His Love is the only happiness that can satisfy a human heart.
We would like to enhance the splendor of our liturgical ceremonies with some magnificent vestments available for purchase. Alas, their price is in proportion to their grandeur! Nonetheless, we think that a Seminary ought to possess some liturgical treasures, that our future priests might be given a sense of the honor that we should render to God. We entrust this cause to your generosity.