Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Fr. Girouard on Rome-SSPX: A Recognition would go both ways!

Fr. Girouard on Rome-SSPX: A Recognition would go both ways! 

St. Joseph Defender of the Church Parish
Aldergrove, British Columbia, Canada
June 3rd, 2018
CORPUS CHRISTI SERMON
By
Rev. Fr. Patrick Girouard

 
Introduction by Fr. Girouard: This Resistance and Fidelity parish was founded on June 2nd, 2013. After having done a series of sermons against an agreement with non-converted Rome (and even a conference in French) between May 2012 and March 2013, despite warnings from my district Superior (then Fr. J. Wegner), I was ordered by him, on March 13th, 2013 (the day of the election of Pope Francis!) to transfer from the Langley Priory in BC, to the SSPX Headquarters in Montreal (Quebec), and was told I could not anymore criticize the superiors, whether in public or in private. With the encouragement of Bishop Williamson, and truly Providential help, I was able to avoid going to Montreal, and instead went into hiding on an island of the Province where, through a parishioner remaining in Langley (Mr. Timothy Ziebart), I was able during two months to have a group of Langley parishioners study all relevant documents, and understand clearly the Operation Suicide of Bishop Fellay. These courageous parishioners then declared themselves ready to start a parish of Resistance and Fidelity. I then came back to Langley and, after three weeks of preparation, organized the first Mass of the parish, which I entrusted to St Joseph Defender of the Church. Just before that Mass, I read my Mission Statement to the assembly, and they all signed it. (This was also the day I preached about the “Branding” of the Society). Five years later, on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the parish had an Exposition and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, followed by a High Mass. (It was done in this order, because there is no place suitable for Reposition in the hall we rent). In the sermon given on that day, I explained why, if we accept a recognition by Rome as being Catholics “as we are”, it would mean that we also implicitly recognize the Conciliar Romans as being Catholics “as they are”, which we know cannot be true! Myself and all the parishioners, are truly grateful to God, the Blessed Mother, and the great St. Joseph, to have helped us during all those years, and we thank all those generous souls who have helped us by their prayers, sacrifices, and donations. You remain in our daily prayers!

If you want to see the video of the sermon, and the pictures taken on that day, click here:

https://thebastion.faith/aldergrove-fifth-year-anniversary/ 


In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Our Lord loves us so much that He gave His own life for us. The Blessed Sacrament has not been established on a bed of roses, so to speak. We had the procession today of the Blessed Sacrament. We had lots of petals of flowers. It was beautiful, but that was not the way the Blessed Sacrament was instituted, as you know.

It was instituted the same night that Our Lord was betrayed by Judas! The same night he was denied three times by his first Pope! The same night that they all fled in the Garden of Gethsemane! The same night while he was in agony, to such a point that he was sweating blood, his three best Apostles, Peter, John and James, that he took with him close by to be supported by their prayers, were sleeping! And they are imitated even to this day by some faithful who sometimes do not go to bed early enough on the Saturday, and pay the price on Sunday. I’m not mentioning any names… And yet these three best friends, they were sleeping! Three times he woke them up! You would think one time would be enough! Three times he woke them up! But Judas was not asleep. The bad priests, the Pharisees, the scribes, they were not asleep. The pagans, they were not asleep. They were active, in the middle of the night!

These are the circumstances in which the most Holy Sacrament was instituted. A very dramatic affair. And it was instituted for what? For show? No. To give something more to God? That He doesn’t have? No. It was instituted so that us, the sinners, us who have nailed Him to the cross by our sins… Let’s face facts: We were the ones nailing Him to the cross! We were the ones scourging Him and then crowning Him with thorns! Sometimes, we proclaim Him Our King! Unfortunately, maybe sometimes the crown we give Him is not a crown of glory; it is a crown of thorns, even to this day! And therefore we must strike our breast!

When He was on the cross He said “I thirst”. He was thirsting for souls. As His body was thirsting on the cross, “I thirst”, and what did He get? Water? No. Water mixed with vinegar, with gall, a very bitter mixture, and unfortunately sometimes this is what we give Our Lord. He asks, He says: “I am thirsty”, “I am thirsty for your love, I am thirsty for your devotion, I am thirsty for your sacrifices, I am thirsty for you cooperating in my passion, as members of my Body!” And what do we give Him? Unfortunately many times it is not pure water. It is water mixed with bitter gall, because of our sins, because of our weaknesses, because of our negligence.

And so from time to time we make a beautiful ceremony to try to repair. How do we repair? Can we repair by ourselves?   Can we repair our neglect by ourselves? No. How do we repair? We use Our Lord himself! We repay Our Lord with Our Lord! We are using Our Lord Himself to honour Him. It is Our Lord who instituted this sacrament which enables us to honour Him in the flesh. So it is Himself who honours Himself, and this is the greatest gift! This is the most perfect worship! This is why Our Lord is the High Priest! Because Our Lord is the only one who can render to God the absolute, perfect, pure worship. Because His human nature is united to the divine nature.

And yet, in His generosity, by His sacraments, He has enabled us to become holy and to become saints and to become divine. We have become adopted children of God by baptism. By the state of grace we have God dwelling in our souls and then we can participate in the true worship. It is the Holy Ghost, that was sent by Our Lord himself, who speaks by our mouth.   He is the one Our Lord himself promised, that makes us say “Abba”, “Father”. It is the Holy Ghost who prays through us, and this is why we have to believe that everything good that we do towards God or towards neighbor is not from our weak human nature. It is from the divine part that was given to us by Our Lord dying on the cross.

And this is why we have to have so much veneration, obviously to all the sacraments, but especially to the Most Holy Sacrament, Sacratissimum Sacramentum, the Most Holy Sacrament, the Most Sacred Sacrament, says the Church herself, because it is Our Lord Himself present. That is why we have to have towards this holy and sacred sacrament the greatest possible reverence. The greatest possible love and respect.

This is why we refuse the New Mass and the new sacraments. This is why we refuse the new Conciliar Church with its pomp and its works. We refuse the New Code of Canon Law. We refuse the New Bible. We refuse the New Ritual. We refuse the new sacraments. We refuse all the new teachings. We refuse the new spirit of Vatican II, the new doctrines introduced in Vatican II, religious liberty, collegiality, and ecumenism. We refuse to have any part with this.

Why? Wouldn’t it be easy, or should it not only be acceptable but should we not wish that the official Church and the Pope may recognize us as Catholics? Should we not desire that we be made an official part of this Church? If we recognize that the Pope is Pope, maybe we should do so? And yet, we know it is impossible.

You see, a relation goes both ways. This is what I fear is not understood in the Society of St. Pius X. What is a relation?   A relation exists between two terms, like for instance a father and a son. You cannot be in a relation alone. If you are a man, you cannot be a father if you don’t have a son, or a daughter, or a child; and that child necessarily comes from a father and a mother. This is a relation, it goes both ways. You need both, the father and the son.

Now, Bishop Fellay thinks that Rome, on the one hand of the relation, can declare us Catholics and that we can, on the other hand, accept it, and that the relationship only goes one way, from Rome to the Society, and that it only comes one way, and we will remain as we are etc. etc.   All the promises: “We will remain as we are, we will not compromise”… But he forgets that a relation goes both ways! If the Pope says: “You are Catholics!”, when you accept this, you recognize also that the New Church is Catholic! A relation always goes both ways!

So it will not be true, even if, materially maybe, they (the Society) would not change. Just the fact to accept the relation, you are sending back the message that you recognize the New Church as being Catholic! Because, on the one hand, everybody knows that you are the “Arch-Traditional-Integrist-Super-Regularity” and everything; you are here (gesture of the hand), and when you accept to be called (Catholic), to be part of the new Church, then you say: “The New Church is good! The new Church is Catholic!”

And we know it is not! It would be Catholic only on the moment that they would reject Vatican II and all its errors and all the (new) sacraments and all the changes.   But it is not going to happen unless a miracle of God. And so, therefore, our battle is to preserve the truth without compromise. We tell the Pope, we tell the Bishops, we tell the Cardinals: “We recognize that you are the authority, but you are leading the Church on the wrong path, and unless you convert and you go back to Tradition, we cannot have a relationship with you! We will pray for you, but we cannot say that you are Catholic, because you are not! You do not act as Catholics!”

And so this is why when Bishop Fellay, six years ago, in the open… It was much earlier than that, it was 1997 that he authorized the GREC, the foundation of the group that was supposed to bring a reconciliation with Rome… So Bishop Fellay has been working for that for many, many years, but for us it has been only 15 years later (in 2012) that finally the tip of the iceberg pointed out from the sea. And it was revealed to us what was going on behind the scenes, and we have resisted and we have said publicly to Bishop Fellay: “This is impossible! It is operation Suicide what we are doing, and we cannot accept to compromise with the destroyers of the Church!” What was the reaction of Bishop Fellay? To warn these priests, and to kick them out!

So at some point we had to start, and the priests, by the grace of God, did not remain alone. The Holy Ghost has inspired (us), because it is the promise of God that the gates of Hell will not prevail! That means: Until the end of time, there will remain true Catholic bishops and true Catholic priests and true Catholic faithful. Even if it is only a small number, they will remain. That is the promise of Christ Himself, and in order to fulfill His promise He had to inspire not only some priests, not only Bishop Williamson, but also many faithful, you, to leave behind your friends, to leave behind your beautiful church, and to join somebody who was accused of using hypnotic powers to bring you with him! It is true, I am not making this up! Our faithful were told that Father Girouard is mesmerizing them! So it is a very big power, because it lasted five years! So, normally, mesmerizing doesn’t last that long, so it means it is a special power! Obviously it is not true!

What has brought us together is the Holy Ghost and the love for truth. And the love for truth is correlated to hatred of error! The love for good is correlated to hatred for evil! You cannot love both! Our Lord even said, not only those who love evil are bad, but “those who are not with me are against me”. We cannot sit on the fence. Our Lord does not give us a choice, either we are good or we are bad. Either we are with Our Lord or we are against Our Lord. There is no such thing as indifference!

And so therefore, my dear friends, to make a long story short, let us give thanks! Because, obviously, it is a miracle that… Our foundation was a miracle, our perseverance was a miracle! Let us never forget those who were here and have died, our dear friends, Philip Filiatrault and Tom Canning. Today is the first Sunday of the month, so the mass is for the parish and the pastor and including our dead parishioners. Let us pray also for those who were with us and are not with us anymore. I think they still deserve our help, our spiritual help, because they have been helping us awhile along the way, and I think we have to be grateful for all those, and not judge them if they left; not judge them but be grateful for the time (while) they helped. They remain in my prayers. We have new members…

I will finish with this. (Father shows two pieces of paper). Normally I would have read the Mission Statement, but you already have a copy and it is on the website (https://thebastion.faith/our-mission-statement/) and the time is limited. (At this point a young baby starts screaming…) There is even a protest right now! Of course that is a sure sign that I should stop! But I have the original copy with your original signatures of five years ago, and those who were not with us at that moment, but who want to be on this page, which one day I may make into a plaque and give to everybody, so you will be able to come after mass to the back, and sign the statement and put the date of when you joined.

So let us thank the Lord for all His benefits, and let us continue to pray as best we can.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.