Our secret indulgence regarding ourselves is truly a poison that surreptitiously con¬taminates us and leads us to the doors of death. Like Narcissus, we like to contemplate ourselves in the reflection of our own excellence, which exerts on us a fascination without equal. This strange contemplation of our qualities leads us to fall into a subtle complafcency that pollutes our purest acts and sterilizes our good desires.
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
Our secret indulgence regarding ourselves is truly a poison that surreptitiously con¬taminates us and leads us to the doors of death. Like Narcissus, we like to contemplate ourselves in the reflection of our own excellence, which exerts on us a fascination without equal. This strange contemplation of our qualities leads us to fall into a subtle complafcency that pollutes our purest acts and sterilizes our good desires.
Pride, do you say? Of course! Who can deny it? It is the origin of all our evils and it is as the breath of Satan exhaling its pestilential breath into our souls. Not content with having sinned and thus rising against the Majesty of God, we refuse to acknowledge our culpability and to fight our sins. In the eyes of God, such a reaction is more injurious even than our fault, because while human weakness can explain the fall, nothing - except an act of madness - can justify our refusal to confess it. It is madness indeed to deny what is obvious. We proudly embrace such aberration, but it fails to disguise our profound poverty and, in the end, only reveals the turpitude of our soul.
That wound that we carry deep within our being and that we try so desperately to hide explains why we so often react with vehemence and promptitude against all that conflicts with the high regard that we have of ourselves. Our morbid over-sensitivity is only a screen behind which we want to conceal the truth of our mediocrity. What a poor defense! We think of protecting ourselves and we do nothing but acknowledge our weakness!
We easily take offense and we say words full of animosity under the fallacious pretext of avenging our honor and, by doing this, we often sink into ridicule. We must not blind ourselves, but acknowledge our congenital indigence and destroy all our illusions of pride by laughing at them, thus healing our inclination to morbid introspection.
But laughter is only proof of a good spirit; it cannot be enough to end this gangrene. We must use supernatural remedies and radically turn ourselves towards God in order to heal, in its deepest roots, the evil that unrelentingly corrodes us. Our principal weapon remains recourse to God, elevating our souls in a prayer of ardent demand. Grace alone will enable us to defeat the enemy infiltrating the deepest center of our souls. We should insistently and tirelessly ask for this grace; the evil is so rooted in us that it cannot be eradicated by any other means. "Pray, my children, My Son lets Himself be touched by your prayer" said Our Lady in her apparition at Pontrnain. Let us follow this maternal warning, let us recognize our state as mendicants and quietly expose our poverty: God alone can heal our purulent wounds, caused by the flood of our over-sensitivity, and purify the source of our intentions. The grace of this spiritual healing is the fruit of prayer.
To heal us, Our Lord Jesus Christ uses means that are proportional to the extent of the evil suffered and contradicts our corrupted nature by beneficial but pitiless humiliations. Without the help of prayer, the strength and understanding that it gives us, we could not carry this burden of opprobrium in our uncertain souls and we would lose ourselves in the meandering complications of our pride. Humiliation is a divine medicine which requires the participation of he who suffers its bite. No one can pride himself on having sufficient strength and lights to carry alone the burden which rests upon his shoulders and associates him with the painful and redeeming Cross of Our Savior. The contemplation of the Passion of Christ introduces us into this beautiful part of the mystery of our redemption. Incorporated into the suffering Christ, the splinters of our humiliations become those of the Holy Tree.
May Our Lady, pure mirror of the divine simplicity, help us to undertake this essential combat against the iniquitous incursions of our over-sensitivity. It is a requirement of our fidelity to the teachings of the Cross. It is also required for the survival of Tradition, which suffers from the consequences of our ruffled susceptibilities, of this hidden pride that destroys everything in its way.
By the grace of God, we are the heirs of the Faith of our Fathers. Let us be also the heirs of their Christian virtues and carry in our souls this specific mark of humility that defeats the devil and preserves us from falling into hell.
May you have a good and holy year, in Christo sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux
A REMINDER
• As you know, our postal address was changed already two years ago. It is now 21077 Quarry Hill Rd., Winona, MN 55987
• Nonetheless, we still receive letters addressed to our former address, RR1 Box 97 A-l. Until now, they have been delivered to us by the Post Office, but from the beginning of this year they will be returned to their senders as “undeliverable.” Please, take notice of this to avoid the loss of your mails to the Seminary.