Rector's letters

Firstly, let me invite you to persevere in prayer for the intentions of Holy Mother Church. This is a time for prayer and sacrifice, for daily fidelity to grace. By praying for the repose of the soul of Pope John Paul II, we discharge our duties towards him, far from the polemics that, in this moment, could only be sterile. This is the appropriate time for following the repeated and pressing exhortations of Our Lady regarding our double duty of being souls of prayer and penance. Let us also pray for the Cardinals entering into the Conclave, so that they may be docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost.

Holy Mother Church never ceases to invite us to turn our eyes towards Our Lord Jesus Christ, in order to know Him, to love Him, to follow Him and to be like Him by participating in His grace. Nonetheless, dazzled by our own excellence, we like to let our gaze linger upon ourselves and contemplate our own importance. As long as we do not radically change our object of contemplation, we will not be able to answer this maternal invitation favorably.

"Enjoy yourself," the world is forever telling us. "Enjoy yourself and do not be ashamed. Pleasure will make you happy." How difficult it is to resist such an invitation! We naturally desire happiness, but we are usually under the insidious influence of the modern confusion between pleasure and happiness, and thus, we are only too ready to listen to those voices that invite us in such an insistent manner to savor all the fruits of pleasure. In reality, this constant solicitation is a dreadful trap.

Jaded child of an artificial world, modern man has lost the capacity to be surprised. He cannot understand the importance of taking the time to pause, discover and admire the beauty of those realities not made by the hand of man. The wonders of nature and the stunning workings of grace leave him unmoved. He is unable to appreciate their munificence and harmony, which proclaim the perfections of God.

Interview with Father Le Roux by the French SSPX newsportal La Porte Latine.

The world seems a desert where all traces of the Divine Presence have been ruthlessly swept away by the parching winds of Materialism – a desert in which men do not know where to find the salutary waters of grace. Spiritually dehydrated and trying to extinguish the internal fires that torment them, men rush off in vain spiritual quests that are no more than mirages.

On November 21, 1974, in Rome, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre wrote a memorable manifesto, a vigorous declaration of Catholic Faith against the errors infecting the Church today. In it, he presented, very clearly and firmly, the profound motives that had led him to oppose the grave doctrinal deviations of the Roman authorities. That text made quite clear that his opposition to the Roman reforms, far from being the result of a schismatic or rebellious spirit, was no more than the expression of his deep and indefectible devotion to the Throne of Peter.

Living in the midst of a spineless world whose polluted air numbs the soul, we have the duty and the honor to go on the offensive. Having received a sacred deposit from Christ on the Cross, we are under the obligation of making our inheritance bear fruit. The baptismal grace we have received does not allow us any prevarication, because it has deeply marked our soul with the indelible seal of the Cross. It has inscribed it in blood, in that Precious Blood that demands our personal response and our indefectible engagement. Any evasion is nothing more than cowardice.

Tribulation always takes us by surprise and hurts us, whatever it may be – the brutal loss of a loved one, an accident, a contradiction, an error, the consequences of our own sins... Then we fail to control the violent emotions that agitate us. Blinded by grief, we are distraught, and, adding to our confusion, an interior voice repeats a nagging "why?" Shut up in our deep affliction, shaken by the roaring flood of our emotions and subject to the tyrannical power of our own imagination, we are impotent to answer that painful question.

Out of the limelight, the Society of St. Pius X continues serving God and His Church through the work of its priests exercising their apostolate in more than 60 countries. Thus, the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar is never interrupted and at every moment God receives the homage due to Him. In these last two months, 16 new priests have been ordained. Soon they will enter the vast battlefield of the apostolate, where they will have to fight every inch of the way against the Devil and his desire for domination. The harsh battle that awaits them makes us think of David and Goliath. Let us pray that these young priests – and their elders also – will have the same strength and the same humility as the saintly king of Israel.