November 2005 - Credidimus Caritati

Credidimus Caritati – We have believed in Love. The episcopal motto chosen by Archbishop Lefebvre describes him perfectly. He was, indeed, a man of profound faith, a lively faith that established him in God, in that center of love that is the Holy Trinity. Credidimus Caritati, we have believed in the love of God for us and our whole life carries its seal. We believe that the love of God nailed Our Lord Jesus Christ upon the infamous gibbet of the Cross, so that His death could repair the divine honor, ridiculed by the sins of men. We believe that the Divine Love used this instrument of torture to conquer and reign. Finally, we believe that the love of God expects that we seek to establish the reign of Christ in individuals, families and societies, by tirelessly preaching Jesus and Jesus crucified.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Credidimus Caritati – We have believed in Love. The episcopal motto chosen by Archbishop Lefebvre describes him perfectly. He was, indeed, a man of profound faith, a lively faith that established him in God, in that center of love that is the Holy Trinity. Credidimus Caritati, we have believed in the love of God for us and our whole life carries its seal. We believe that the love of God nailed Our Lord Jesus Christ upon the infamous gibbet of the Cross, so that His death could repair the divine honor, ridiculed by the sins of men. We believe that the Divine Love used this instrument of torture to conquer and reign. Finally, we believe that the love of God expects that we seek to establish the reign of Christ in individuals, families and societies, by tirelessly preaching Jesus and Jesus crucified.

This faith in Divine Love illuminates the whole life and doctrine of our Founder. We can thus describe his spiritual life and understand the way it permeated his life as missionary and bishop.

The spiritual life of Archbishop Lefebvre was a constant state of dependence on God. He tirelessly adored and admired the mystery of the absolute perfection of God and particularly liked to contemplate the existence of God. Having neither beginning nor end, God is, from all eternity. Indeed, the life of God is a mystery that infinitely exceeds the capacity of our intellect, but one that we are invited to penetrate by faith, in order to be able to share in its infinite riches. By grace, we actually partake in the divine existence and we are alive, already on this earth, by the very life of God.

The mystery of God and His infinite transcendence permeates the spirituality of our Founder. Thus, it is only natural that he invites us to look at God, setting our selves aside. Holiness is not a tension of the heart seeking an impossible perfection, but a simple attentiveness to the presence of God. Our gaze, fascinated by

God and His existence, dwells on His perfections and by this very fact is pulled away from our own selves.

We thus avoid floundering in a sickening narcissism. Archbishop Lefebvre appears as a worthy son of the founder of his congregation of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the Venerable Libermann, whose last instruction to his sons was: “God is all, man is nothing.”

This is a very simple truth of our faith, but one that must be recalled in a world like ours, where man is the object of an idolatrous self-worship and where, because we are impregnated by this insidious spirit, we consider ourselves as someone of importance. A true spiritual life based upon the faith enables us to avoid all contention and distortions, which are only proofs of our self-love.

This spiritual life finds its summit and its source in the Liturgy, setting of divine praise par excellence. Archbishop Lefebvre, impregnated by this life of faith, made the Holy Mass the center of his personal life and the heart of his missionary and episcopal action.

The Holy Mass is the heritage we have received from Our Lord Jesus Christ. To celebrate it with faith is nothing else than to express the incommensurable love of God for us. Thanks to it. we can participate intimately in the Sacrifice of the Cross and return to God the Father the homage which is due to Him. The Holy Mass is the surest expression of our faith in Divine Love, it is the Credidimus Caritati truly lived. The fruits of the Mass are not delayed and Divine Love immediately touches our hearts. Men, families, nations subject themselves to the yoke of Our Lord. The reign of Christ spreads and diabolic influences are wiped out. The Mass is the heart of the life of the priest, his raison d'être, but it is also his apostolic weapon par excellence. As a missionary in Africa, Archbishop Lefebvre understood perfectly the saving influence of the Mass and this supernatural intelligence of the sacred Mysteries made of him an incomparable apostle of the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This missionary action, started in the African bush, was continued by Marcel Lefebvre as a bishop. Remaining faithful to his episcopal motto, he stood strongly against the Liberalism which still corrupts the Church and fills it with a Protestant spirit.

Credidimus Caritati, or, if you prefer, non possumus – We cannot. We cannot bend and submit to the yoke of Catholic Liberalism. This would mean, quite simply, the denial of our faith in the love of Christ for us. The doctrines of ecumenism and religious freedom defended by Vatican II are insults addressed directly to Our Lord, Who established the Catholic Church as the only ark of salvation. Moreover, such doctrines ruin the missionary effort and encourage religious indifferentism, sending many disoriented souls into hell. They ruin the work of Christ, more surely than Luther did before them. This negation of the Redemption cannot be accepted. It should cause only one salutary reaction, that of St. Pius X: the restoration of all things in Christ.

All the actions of Archbishop Lefebvre – either during the Second Vatican Council, or at the time of the foundation of the Society of Saint Pius X, or when firmly resisting the novel Roman decisions that ruined the faith – have been only the manifestations of his faith in the love of God. He who says faith, says fidelity, independently of any circumstances or unjust condemnations. The combat that he carried out was not a combat for his personal honor, but to maintain the honor of God and His Son, ridiculed by those who, in the first place, have the responsibility to honor Him. Such fidelity and such faith are, by themselves, guarantors of our hope.

Credidimus Caritati. The heritage of Archbishop Lefebvre rests on these very simple words. It is now our turn to have the honor of making them our own and of repeating them in the same impulse of faith that he did, so that our life becomes nothing other than an homage rendered to Divine Love. Credidimus Caritati, heri, hodie et semper.

In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,

Fr. Yves le Roux

NEWS FROM THE SEMINARY

• The month of November got off to a good start with the visit of our Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay. and of the General Bursar, Rev. Fr. Emeric Baudot. Bishop Fellay made thus his annual canonical visit of the Seminary, holding interviews with every member of our community. Very graciously and to the delight of the seminarians, now bereft of a regular episcopal presence, His Excellency agreed to perform a taxing succession of pontifical ceremonies during his stay – masses and vespers for Christ the King, All Saints and All Souls. Needless to say, many of the new seminarians had never seen such liturgical plenty! May it fire them with a renewed love for the priesthood to which they aspire.

• Coincident with Bishop Fellay's presence, the Seminary also enjoyed the visits of several other SSPX priests. Rev. Fr. Patrick Groche and Rev. Fr. Arnold Trauner, both based in Gabon, came for a short respite in their American tour, and Rev. Fr. Hervé de la Tour came for a week-long rest from his many labors. Such visits are a God-sent opportunity for the seminarians to become more familiar with the realities of the SSPX ministry throughout the world, a ministry in which they will be participating soon enough.

• On November 1, our Society celebrated 35 years of existence, and on November 29, as this letter reminds you, we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of our revered Founder Archbishop Lefebvre. With these two occasions, we commend our Society to your prayers.