The environment in which man is immersed exerts a predominant influence and has a hold over him which, exceeding the simple sphere of his behavior, reaches his very self. Who does not know, for instance, that climates give each country its specific character and shape its inhabitants’ temperament? Beyond climatic variations, we must consider the influences of the spiritual order, whose impact is all the more remarkable since it is imperceptible. Yet our soul receives from it a deep and often indelible mark. Thus, family strongly marks the child, and his adult reactions will tomorrow bear the trace of this first impression.
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
The environment in which man is immersed exerts a predominant influence and has a hold over him which, exceeding the simple sphere of his behavior, reaches his very self. Who does not know, for instance, that climates give each country its specific character and shape its inhabitants’ temperament? Beyond climatic variations, we must consider the influences of the spiritual order, whose impact is all the more remarkable since it is imperceptible. Yet our soul receives from it a deep and often indelible mark. Thus, family strongly marks the child, and his adult reactions will tomorrow bear the trace of this first impression.
This first influence, however, is not the only one. The harmful atmosphere in which we live definitely contaminates our souls. We must be fully aware of it if we do not want to suffer from it. Our times, indeed, carry the poisonous seeds that corrupt us all without our realizing it. We live in a semi-conscious state, numb with gaping satisfaction, searching for anything that flatters our nature, in the monstrous but habitual oblivion of our eternal destiny. Today’s real evil, beyond the tide of immorality that is only its inevitable consequence, lies in this total forgetfulness of our end, rendered banal by dint of repetition. Henceforth, man’s only raison d’être is to draw pleasure from this world. Heaven, therefore, only seems to be the complete earthly fulfillment of our desires.
The virtue of hope, so fragile, so vulnerable, yet so precious, is no longer the light that enlightens man’s steps in the middle of the darkness of this world, constantly reminding him that only joys from heaven can satisfy his desires. What is man without this heavenly clarity? To which mediocre end does he turn his heart? Dishonored and fallen, man has no other aspirations than those of his carnal nature.
The supernatural crown that used to shine on man’s forehead was treacherously taken away from him on the fallacious pretense that it prevented him from attaining happiness. Today, supernatural realities do not even have the honor of being despised. A deadly and even more terrible silence envelops them. Materialism has become man’s horizon. This materialistic omnipotence is nothing else but the concrete expression of the heresy of naturalism that has committed itself to snatch man from the supernatural. The result is pathetic, for man, chained to this corrupted nature that grace no longer vitalizes, is reduced to the level of a monster, as Chesterton acutely observes: “Remove the supernatural from man’s life, and what remains is not even natural anymore.”
Since the original Fall and the redemption brought about by Our Lord, our natural component has only been sound insofar as it has been crowned by its supernatural counterpart. When it is in line with natural virtues, grace purifies and fortifies them. We must respect God’s work and the order that he has restored at the price of his death. Accordingly, one must not despise nature as so many here-tics have done in the past. Far from rejecting the natural world, we respect and crown it by subjecting it to the supernatural domain. We do not want to reject nor confuse either plane, the natural and the supernatural. But we must, on the other hand, harmonize them in order to praise our Creator and Savior and find in this praise the deep reason of our existence.
Today, the world charms us and intends to seduce our intelligence by multiplying lies, illusions and entertainments that flatter our inextinguishable desire for pleasure and that indulge our pride, ambition and senses. From there, our intelligence works toward the satisfaction of our insatiable appetites. Reduced to serving our desires, it is no longer able to respond to the great questions of existence. It is not surprising that we have become enslaved to our passions, for they are the masters of our intelligence! Disillusioned and unable to be interested in superior realities ? the only ones that truly nourish our souls ? we fall into the subtle trap of a relativism that presents itself in a number of questions that manifest our intellectual slavery. Why should we waste our time pursuing invisible realities that seem to us nothing but chimeras, when concrete and desirable realities are within reach without great effort? Why should we take a position and choose a side when universal agreement is the current trend? Why wouldn’t we adopt a tolerant and comprehensive position letting each of us the care of making his own way according to his views? Why should we rise up against the current tendency of laxity?
This sad sampling shows that when intelligence no longer seeks truth, it becomes the grave-digger of souls. These questions betray in themselves the evil that devours us, and from which we are freed only with great difficulty! Liberalism ? this is indeed the deformity in question here ? thrusts its deepest roots in the absence of inner life. Living in a world that purposely disregards man’s super-natural dimension, we pay for the consequences at a very high price. Since faith no longer radiates, we are sinking into liberal relativism. The ultimate reason for Liberalism’s strength and extension is to be found in this absence of inner life, which is the true shield the soul has against all the attacks it undergoes.
How will we ever be able to get out from the trap of illusion in which imprisons our society and entangles us more and more every day by cutting the bridges to supernatural reality? Through a return to the real which is only possible if intelligence recovers its full liberty. Intelligence must then be cured and converted! That is a true challenge! Even if one can show a man that his will is corrupted and that his senses lead him astray, how can one make an intelligence understand that it is deeply wounded and mutilated?
Fortunately, Pope Pius XII gave us the remedy when he asked us to come back to the great realities through preaching on the last things. These eternal truths are a powerful means of returning into ourselves and to reality, for death is an absolute certitude. Yet these great truths should in no way be used as scarecrows. Rather, we must remind the modern man imprisoned in his intoxicating illusions that this world is not an end in itself, but a way of preparing a completely different end that is by nature eternal. We find a grave echo of this great wisdom in this thought of Charles Maurras: “Death is the great lesson of life. It regulates our passions, our deliberations and our actions. To our vain passions, death shows their vanities; to our insatiable passions, death points out their limits. To our unjust passions, death will teach the equity that is peculiar to what governs the grave... the terrors of death are great lights...”
The lights of hope that are so cruelly lacking in our disillusioned souls these days! May these November chants, through which the Holy Church invites us to pray for the dead, give our souls the divine light of supernatural hope.
In other order of things: for some time now the Seminary’s finances, without giving yet cause for alarm, have been suffering nevertheless on account of the general economic slump. For that reason, we have thought that it would be useful letting you know the enclosed financial information, to give you a better knowledge of our needs.
We take also advantage of this occasion to thank you for your habitual generosity. We assure you our prayers for your intentions and of our dedication, in Our Lord Jesus Christ, to help our seminarians to become holy priests totally consecrated to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux