Archbishop Lefebvre's Sermon (Sept. 18, 1977):
Three Great Gifts of God: The Papacy, the Blessed Virgin and the Eucharistic Sacrifice
His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on September 18, 1977 the 30th anniversary of his Consecration as Bishop.
VIDEO INCLUDED
My
dear brothers, my dear friends, it is kind of Providence that this day
of return to the seminary should coincide with the anniversary of my
Episcopal consecration which took place on September 18, 1947 in my
native city. At the request of friends we are celebrating this
anniversary in a special way.
In
the breviary this morning we read the lesson of Tobias. It was said
that the young Tobias, finding himself surrounded by the men of his
race, the Jews, adoring a golden calf which had been set up by the King
of Israel himself, went faithfully to the temple to offer the sacrifices
God had demanded. He was thus faithful to the law of God.
Well,
we hope that we too have been faithful to God, faithful to Our Lord
Jesus Christ. Later on Tobias was among the prisoners sent to Niniva
and there, the Scripture says, while all his compatriots did homage to
the pagan cult, he continued to hold to the truth, retinuit omnem veritatem.
He held to the whole truth. I believe this is the lesson Holy
Scripture has for us and I hope that we, too, remain faithful like
Tobias did, both in his youth and in his captivity. Is it not true that
we today are in a certain sense in captivity, restraint surrounding us
on all sides, imposed on us by those who bow to error both in the world
and inside the Church itself? By those who juggle with the truth and
who keep truth hidden instead of proclaiming it; we are in a world
enslaved by the Devil, enslaved by error.
But
it is our wish to hold to truth. We want to continue to proclaim it.
What then, is this truth? Do we have a monopoly on it? Are we so
presumptuous as to say we have the truth, others do not? No, truth does
not belong to us. It does not come from us; it was not invented by us.
This truth was transmitted to us, it was given us. It is written. It
is living in the Church and in the whole history of the Church. This
truth is known. It is in the books, in the catechisms, in all the acts
of the councils, in all the acts of the sovereign pontiffs. It is in
our Creed, in our Ten Commandments, in the gifts that God has made to
us, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments. It is not we who
invented this truth. We have only to persevere in it.
Because
truth has an eternal character. The truth we profess is God. Our Lord
Jesus Christ who is God and God does not change. God remains
immutable. It was St. Paul who said, vicissitudinis obumbratio. There is not a shadow of vicissitude in Him, not the shadow of changeability. God is unalterable, semper idem,
always the same. Certainly He is the source of everything that changes
but He, Himself, is unalterable, unchangeable. And by the fact that we
profess God as truth we will enter in some way into eternity through
truth. We have no right to change the truth. Indeed it cannot be
changed. It will never change.
Men
have been put on earth to receive a little of that light of eternity as
it descends on them. They become in some way eternal, they too,
immortal, according to the extent to which they attached themselves to
the things that change, to moving things, they move away from God. And
here it is that we feel a need. All men feel this need. They have in
them an immortal soul which is already now in eternity, a soul which
will be happy or unhappy, but it is a soul that exists. It will not
die.
Every
man who is born, who has a soul has entered into eternity. That is why
we have need of eternal things, of the true eternity which is God. We
cannot do without it. It is part of our lives. It is what is most
essential to us. That is why men seek the truth, seek the eternal,
because they have an essential need of eternity.
And
what are the means by which Our Lord has given us eternity,
communicated it to us, made eternity enter into our lives even here
below? Often when I was going through the African countries on my
diocesan visits I chose a theme that was dear to me and very simple,
too. You have heard it many times but for the simple people I spoke to
it summed up the truth. Asking what are the gifts the Good God has
given us which make us participants of the divine life, life eternal, I
would answer: there are three great gifts which God has made us and they
are the Pope, the Blessed Virgin and the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
THE PAPACY
In
reality it is an extraordinary gift that God has made us in giving us
the Pope, in giving us the successors of Peter, giving us precisely this
perpetuity in truth communicated to us through the successors of Peter,
that must be communicated to us through them. And it seems
inconceivable that a successor of Peter could fail in any way to
transmit the truth that he is obliged to transmit. Indeed, without
virtually disappearing from the line of succession he cannot fail to
communicate that which the popes have always communicated, the Deposit
of Faith which does not belong to him alone.
The
Deposit of Faith does not belong to the Pope. It is the treasure of
truth which has been taught during twenty centuries. He must transmit
it faithfully and exactly to all those under him who are charged in turn
to communicate the truth of the Gospel. He is not free.
But
should it happen because of mysterious circumstances which we cannot
understand, which baffle our imagination, which go beyond our
conception, if it should happen that a pope, he who is seated on the
throne of Peter, comes to obscure in some way the truth which it is his
duty to transmit or if he does not transmit it faithfully or allows
error to darken truth or hide it in any way, then we must pray to God
with all our hearts, with all our souls, that light continues to be
thrown on that which he is charged to transmit.
And
we cannot follow error, change truth, just because the one who is
charged with transmitting it is weak and allows errors to spread around
him. We don’t want the darkness to encroach on us. We want to live in
the light of truth. We remain faithful to that which has been taught
for two thousand years. That what has been taught for 2,000 years and
which is part of eternity could change is inconceivable.
Because
it is eternity which has been taught to us. It is the eternal God,
Jesus Christ eternal God, and everything which is centered on God is
centered on eternity. Never can the Trinity be changed. Never can the
redemptive work of Christ through the Cross and the Sacrifice of the
Mass be changed. These things are eternal. They belong to God. How
can someone here below change those things? Who is the priest who feels
he has the right to change those things, to modify them? Impossible!
When
we possess the past we possess the present and we possess the future.
Because it is impossible, I say metaphysically impossible, to separate
the past from the present and future. Impossible! Then God would no
longer be God! God would no longer be eternal! God would no longer be
immutable. And there would be nothing more to believe in. We would be
completely in error.
This
is why, without worrying about all that is happening around us in these
times we ought to close our eyes to the horror of this drama we are
living through, close our eyes and affirm our Creed, our Ten
Commandments, meditate on the Sermon on the Mount which is also our law.
We must attach ourselves to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to the
Sacraments awaiting the light that will shine around us again. That is
all. We must do this without becoming bitter or violent in a spirit
that is unfaithful to Our Lord. Let us stay charitable. Let us pray,
suffer, accept all the trials, everything that happens, everything that
God sends us. Let us do as Tobias did. Abandoned by everyone as they
went to adore the golden calf of the gods of the pagans, he remained
faithful. Still, he too could have thought that, since only he remained
faithful it might be that he was mistaken. But no, he knew that
whatever God had taught to his forebears could not change. The truth of
God existed and could not change. And so it is with us. We too have
to rely upon the truth that is God yesterday, today and tomorrow. Jesus Christus heri, hodie et in saecula.
And
that is why I say we must retain our confidence in the papacy. We must
retain confidence in the successor of Peter in so far as he is the
successor of Peter. But if it should happen that he were not perfectly
faithful in his duties, then we must remain faithful to those who were
the successors of Peter and not to him who is not the successor of
Peter. That is all. His duty is to transmit the Deposit of the Faith.
THE BLESSED VIRGIN
The
second gift is that of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She has never changed.
Is it possible to imagine that the Blessed Virgin Mary could change in
her attitude to the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, her divine Son,
toward the Sacrifice of the Cross, toward the work of redemption? Is it
possible to imagine that the Blessed Virgin Mary could change one iota
of her faith, that she could have had doubts at some period of her life,
that she could have thought herself mistaken? That she could have
doubted the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, doubted the Blessed
Trinity, she who was filled with the Holy Ghost? Impossible!
Inconceivable!
Here
below she was already in eternity. The Blessed Virgin Mary, through
her faith, an unchangeable, profound faith, could not be disturbed in
any way. That is evident. Do not let us be disturbed by the noises
around us but keep faithful, faithful like the Blessed Virgin Mary. And
I want to add to this subject of the Blessed Virgin Mary something
which seems to me to be important for us at this time in which we live.
Continuously we are told the Virgin says this or says that. The Virgin
has appeared here, the Virgin has communicated this message to that
person. Of course, we do not rule out the possibility that a word of
the Blessed Virgin could be addressed to persons of her choice. That is
evident. But considering the kind of period we are living through we
must be suspicious. We must mistrust.
The
place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the theology of the Church is, in
my estimation, infinitely sufficient to make us love her above everyone
after Our Lord Jesus Christ and that we should have toward her a
devotion which is profound and continuous day after day. It is not
necessary that we have constant recourse to messages about which we
cannot be absolutely certain whether they come from the Blessed Virgin
or not. I am not speaking of the apparitions which have been recognized
by the Church. But we must be very careful when it comes to rumors
that circulate everywhere today. All the time I am receiving people or
communications which are said to be addressed to me from the Blessed
Virgin or from Our Lord – a message to be addressed to me from the
Blessed Virgin or form Our Lord – a message received here, another
there. Whereas in fact we should hope the Blessed Virgin is with us
every day.
And
she is. We know that. She is with us. She is present at every
Sacrifice of the Mass. She cannot separate herself from the Cross of
Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our devotion to the Blessed Virgin ought to be
profound, perfect. But it ought not have to depend on private messages.
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE
God,
Jesus Christ, has given us Himself in the Eucharist. What more
beautiful thing could He do? I often say to the seminarians: if the
Priestly Society of Saint Pius X has a particular spirituality – and I
do not really want it to have one although I do not criticize the
founders of Orders like St. Ignatius, Sts. Dominic and Vincent de Paul
whom I know wanted to give particular characters to their societies,
characters without doubt willed by Providence at the moment they were
founded – I think that if there is a particular mark to our Society it
is devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
How
our spirits, our hearts, our bodies are as if captivated by the great
mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! And it is in proportion to
how we deepen our understanding of the great mystery of the Sacrifice of
the Mass that we understand the priesthood, the grandeur of the
priesthood. Because it is intimately, I say metaphysically, bound up
with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And this is of the greatest
importance in these times.
We
have need of this, my dear friends. You have need of being captured by
this spirituality of the Mass. Not only the priests but also our
religious, our brothers, our nuns, and all of the laity, all of you
faithful here present. We must have for the Sacrifice of the Mass a
devotion greater than ever before because it is the very foundation
stone of our faith.
I
hardly dare cite for you an example something that happened in Chile
during the three days I spent there. Still, because the idea occurs to
me, I will indeed tell you if only to show the point of degradation the
concept of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has reached in the minds of
some of the highest members of the hierarchy. During my stay in Chile a
concelebration was televised. It was presided over by the Auxiliary
Bishop of Santiago. I myself did not see the screening but if was
described to me by many people who saw it. There were some 15 or 20
priests concelebrating with him. During the ceremony the Auxiliary
Bishop explained to the faithful, that is, everyone who was looking at
the television, that this was a meal and he saw no reason why one should
not smoke during a meal. And he himself smoked during that
concelebration!
That
is how far things have reached! This is the sad state of degradation,
of sacrilege a bishop can attain. It is unheard of, inconceivable!
Penance must be done for years in reparation for such offenses, for
such unimaginable scandal! It serves to show how far one can go when
one no longer believes.
We
must be attached to the Sacrifice of the Mass as to the apple of our
eye; as we are attached to that which is dearest to us, that which is
the most respected, the most holy, the most sacred, the most divine. That is the meaning of the Seminary.
They
may criticize the Seminary in any way they like. And they do. The
Seminary is this way, that way. They have decided this about it, that
about it. But in fact they decide nothing, change nothing. The
Seminary stays as it is. It continues to be what it is because that was
why it was founded. The Seminary remains a Catholic seminary. And if
God gives me life the Seminary will not change. I would die rather than
change any part of the Catholic doctrine which must be taught in the
Seminary.
With the grace of God, come what may, we will not change. So let them say what they will. Let them say that the Seminary has a new direction, the Seminary is this way or that. It is the Devil who says such things in order to destroy the Seminary. Obviously he cannot tolerate Catholic priest who have the faith.
And
then, one cannot avoid speaking about it, all around us here and there
in every country but particularly in France, there are divisions among
those who are trying to hold to the faith, a mixture of calumny,
slander, exaggerated words, foolish expressions, unjustified
suppositions. Let us ignore it all. Let us instead work well, doing
the will of God according to the teachings of the Catholic Church,
continuing like our predecessors and our ancestors, doing what the
Council of Trent asked of us, bishops, who must continue the formation
which has always been given to priests. If we do this we will be
certain we are remaining faithful.
That
is enough. Let us remain calm. Let us remain faithful. And if it
should ever come to be that the faith is not taught here, then leave me.
If, my dear seminarians, I do not teach you Catholic truth, then
leave! Do not stay here. That is your duty. But if I teach the
Catholic Faith – and you have the whole library at your disposal to find
out whether or not what was handed to us is being handed down to you –
then, be confident. And we will do everything so that the Catholic
Faith continues to be taught here, taught in its entirety so that you
can, you too, carry on that truth that is so full of grace and life.
Truth is the source of life. We have need of that life. The faithful
are hungry for it. Why is it we have requests for priests from all
asides? Because the faithful are thirsty for truth, thirsty for the
grace of God, for the supernatural life, thirsty for that eternity
toward which we are heading.
Therefore,
have confidence in doing what the Church has always done – not
confidence in Msgr. Lefebvre. I am a poor man like the others. I have
no pretentions to be better than others. On the contrary, I do not know
why God has permitted me to have 30 years in the episcopate. I think
that if I were to judge things on the human plane I would have preferred
to remain a missionary in the jungles of Gabon; in isolation I would
not have had all the problems I have had in my 30 years in the
episcopate. But God has wanted it this way. He continues to try us.
Very well, if that is His will so it must be and we must continue to
carry the Cross. It is not because He imposes crosses that we may
abandon Him. On the contrary, we may not abandon Our Lord. We must
follow Him.
And
so, my dear friends be faithful – faithful to the Pope, successor of
Peter when he shows himself to be truly the successor of Peter. Because
that is what a pope is and it is in this sense we have need of him. We
are not the people who want to break with the authority of the Church,
with the successor of Peter. But neither are we people who want to
break with twenty centuries of tradition in the Church, with twenty
centuries of successors of Peter!
We
have made out choice. We have chosen to be obedient in the real sense,
obedient to what all the Popes have taught for 20 centuries and we
cannot imagine that he who sits on Peter’s throne does not want to teach
these things. Well, if that is the case then God will judge him. But
we cannot go into error because there is a kind of rupture in the chain
of the successors of Peter. We want to remain faithful to the
successors of Peter who transmitted to us the Deposit of the Faith. It
is in this sense that we are faithful to the Catholic Church that we
remain within it and can never go into schism. Since we are attached to
twenty centuries of Faith we cannot make a schism. That is what
guarantees for us the past, the present and the future. It is
impossible to separate the past from the present and the future.
Sustaining ourselves with the past we are sure of the present and the
future.
So
have confidence! Ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to help us under all
circumstances. She is as strong as an army arrayed for battle. She who
suffered as Queen of Martyrs at the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
And will we not follow Our Blessed Mother and with her be ready to
suffer martyrdom so that the work of redemption can continue?
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