Satan has only one goal: to tarnish the glory of God by damning souls. Untiring, he pursues his savage and blind hatred of man. He is busy going after his ends by subjugating our hearts through the portrayal of attractive scenes that seduce them all too easily.
The devil takes care to disguise himself and is thus able to spy on us at his leisure. He knows our weaknesses better than anybody else and his experience in this combat enables him to provide very seductive temptations, thus deceiving souls that hardly suspect that, behind the seduction of the moment, hides a most obstinate adversary.
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
Satan has only one goal: to tarnish the glory of God by damning souls. Untiring, he pursues his savage and blind hatred of man. He is busy going after his ends by subjugating our hearts through the portrayal of attractive scenes that seduce them all too easily.
The devil takes care to disguise himself and is thus able to spy on us at his leisure. He knows our weaknesses better than anybody else and his experience in this combat enables him to provide very seductive temptations, thus deceiving souls that hardly suspect that, behind the seduction of the moment, hides a most obstinate adversary.
His supreme ruse—today more effective than ever—consists in deadening the conscience while making it believe that he does not exist or that he is harmless. Men's vigilance slackens and our world, pitiful scene of a true massacre, is reduced to nothing more than a mass of ruins.
Satan usually attacks souls by keeping them immersed in a noxious atmosphere where all is relativized and where, like a rodent, he can eat away their least attempt at resistance. The attack is subtle. Imperceptibly, we enter upon the fragile ground of compromises: we embrace the principles of the world and give up our own without even realizing it. The devil chews and advances unrelentingly, every day gaining ground. Nowhere can we be safe from his attacks. His foul hatred spreads everywhere and we see whole buildings fall down suddenly—buildings which yesterday appeared solid to us. What is happening?
Satan exudes a soporific gas called the "spirit of the world" or "of pleasure." Its scent subtly penetrates our souls and makes them fall into a mortal apathy. The strength of the devil comes from the fact that he does not oblige us, initially, to give up our principles or well-defined positions. He is satisfied with pushing us towards a slackness that, we must acknowledge, suits us extremely well. We slide from concession to abandonment, falling into the carelessness that opens the door to apostasy. All happens insensibly, in a world that condones all blows by its silence and makes possible all capitulations, as we live in a universe where everything has lost importance through being relative. Souls are too weak to react and already secretly aspire to such a pleasant slavery. In consequence, temptation is no more an attack against which we boldly want to defend ourselves, but a morose habit whose eternal stakes we cannot comprehend any more.
Our age wallows in vulgarity and the stench of our century bothers our souls no more. We do not even discern the signs of the infernal presence. Being children of our times, with exclusively human concerns, we tumble down into a very bad naturalistic spirit.
Thus, today we must be more vigilant than ever, so that our heart is not seduced by vain desires, our intelligence is always able to aspire to truth and our eyes, true paths into our soul, are not eager to seek coarse pleasures. The devil is a master of illusions and knows very well how to bind us: he attacks our heart by leading it into a barren sentimentalism, sterilizes our intelligence by watering it down with empty slogans and pollutes our soul by wounding us through our eyes.
We must not be the toys of all these illusions which lead us to a spirit of pliable consent, a true spirit of complicity with the most infamous designs of the prince of darkness who—let us not forget it—is also the prince of this world. If we do not react with strength, we will slide down the fatal slope into Hell. Let us not be mistaken: at the beginning, this slope is not steep. On the contrary, it leads us down gently, imperceptibly, by attractive paths that first charm our nature, but in which we soon become entangled and choke. The fall is then rapid, but we are no longer capable of realizing what is happening to us!
The present battle—because there is a battle, in spite of the misleading appearances of peace, which are only another terrible trap—requires us to be faithful to our life of prayer and the practice of penance that Our Lady recommended to us so many times. It is our duty to stand up, weapons in hand, aware of the eternal stakes of this battle.
We, ourselves, must not remain idle, and we must not let our children fall into this trap. They must be kept away from the nearest occasions of sin, so that they will not slip down dangerous slopes. Our honor as Christians consists in being in the first line of battle. The hour has come when it is necessary to be armed and enter the fray resolutely. Let us remember, as a popular proverb says, that "one should never dine with the devil, not even with a very long spoon."
Our hearts are consecrated by the Blood of Christ and they owe Him the homage of our dependence even in the smallest details.
The way to Hell does not consist only of good intentions: we also descend into it when we allow ourselves to be seduced by the spirit of the world, marching by little steps, at the slow cadence of a funeral march...
In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux
NEWS FROM THE SEMINARY
• On the return of the seminarians from their Christmas vacation, a flu epidemic spread like wildfire throughout the Seminary, culminating on January 16, when seventeen seminarians and four priests "went down" and—perhaps for the first time in the history of the Seminary—classes had to be suspended due to illness... Fortunately, by the time semester exams arrived, the flu had more or less run its course.
• On February 2, 2006, Bishop Richard Williamson, our former Rector, visited us to confer the Tonsure in a Pontifical High Mass. Eleven seminarians received the cassock, while another fourteen (twelve for the SSPX and two for the Benedictines in Silver City. NM) were made clerics by reception of the Tonsure.
• The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius will be preached again at the Seminary this summer: for men from July 3 to 8, and for women from July 17 to 22. The inscription is already open. Please see the flyer enclosed with this letter.