Ave † Maria
Dominican Republic, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart,
7th June, 2013
My dear friends, my dear faithful,
I have to tell you some sad news. I had some serious problems in the apostolate of my Congregation, the Society of Saint Pius X. I had to leave it, unfortunately. These problems were about our work of priests: several souls were left in danger of eternal damnation. And we are priests to save souls.
It was a great suffering to take this decision, because I have a lot of gratitude for the Society of Saint Pius X. It gave me my formation of young man and seminarian. I know a lot of priests in it and I have a great admiration for them. So, I would like to say here very clearly that I don’t want to attack the Society. It is doing a good work in the whole world; I received these fruits like many people. It is very faithful to Catholic doctrine, to the Church and to the Pope. It is nurturing a lot of vocations and is trying to fight against the
world, by the formation of an elite. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: Each tree is known by its fruit.
I don’t have any doubt about my priesthood: I will not leave my vocation, because it was a gift of the infinite love of God. On the contrary, my hope is with His grace, to answer more and more properly serving the souls who don’t know Him.
So, I would like to give you some words, to be – as a priest – a little echo of the Church:
We received our life like a gift, from the God of Charity, because He has a love without limits. The whole sense of our life is having and living every day more of true charity. It is not sufficient to have the faith; it is not sufficient to believe in God and to follow the Church. It is not sufficient either to defend our faith: we have to live in charity. Those are the words of St. Paul in Holy Scripture: If I have all faith so as to move
mountains but do not have love, I am nothing 1Cor13,2. Why we must live in the good and refuse sin? Because we want to love God. Because sin is destroying the order created by God, and a trespass against His love for us. If you love me, you will keep my commandments Jn 14,15. But love is much deeper than a list of rules to us in Heaven: it’s opening us to others. Egoism or introversion is just impossible in it. As God is totally giving Himself, by His love, He is teaching us to give ourselves to others; to think about them; to do everything for
them also. This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved Jn 15,12. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another 13,35. The Catholic People cannot have the desire for an egoist life. It would be a desire against this grace they received in their baptism; against this love of God who is giving Himself to them in Holy Communion. They must open themselves to others, like a natural instinct.
So, my dear friends have a great preoccupation, incessant and peaceful at the same time, for the soul of your neighbour. He was created by the infinite love of God. He is called to live with Him in paradise. But how can they do that if they don't know him or if no-one brings him close to them? How could he be saved if he doesn’t know God, and if nobody is trying to teach him? How can they believe in Him of whom they have
not heard? Have the desire to give yourselves to souls, to pray for them, and to offer sacrifices for them also.
Let the love of God come in your heart. He wants to give you the same thirst to save souls He had on the Cross. Love your neighbour and do everything to tear him from Hell. Speak to Him about the only Being who can give him true happiness. Saint John the Evangelist said, following Jesus Christ: For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another.
The love you received from the Sacred Heart has to grow in you every day; in every Mass; in every Communion. It has to be like a fire: this fire who is putting the image of God in us. I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing. That's where the spirit of fight comes in. You received the Holy Ghost: you are soldiers of Jesus Christ. Be proud of Him! Be proud of your faith! Be proud to be members of the Church He founded. His doctrine is firstly a teaching and meditation of the Holy Gospel and the whole Bible. Defend that. It is attacked, today: don’t permit it. Search your formation and try to teach others. You are auxiliaries of the priests by your Confirmation: to help them to save souls and to teach all nations. They need you, your initiatives, your ardour, your enthusiasm. God knows that their apostolate is hard and thankless, many times. Ask for your formation; do projects. And when the fruits are late: have
patience. The world is fast and hard; but God likes to take His time.
You have to understand more every day something very important: the faith and life with God are giving us true liberty. That is the liberty of the children of God expressed by Saint Paul. Our life is not a negative or puritan appreciation of the Creation. It is a true appreciation, which puts everything in good order before God. Really, we can do everything in our life. We can like all the things He gave us: everything except
sin. So, virtue is an authentic balance in our life.
Search always a deep intimacy with God in a true life of prayer; in the union to His Sacred Heart, especially in Holy Communion. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. It will open yourselves to others and will give you great consolations, peace and a deep happiness.
My dear friends, many of you suffered and will continue to suffer in difficulties we have in our combat for the Holy Church: to keep the true doctrine we received like an inheritance. Don’t despair. Don’t fall into bitterness. The Society of Saint Pius X is faithful to the truth. Your criterion has to be simple in the Crisis: to stay in peace, quiet, if they don’t change anything you received: the Catholic Mass, the sacraments and the Catechism transmitted by the Holy Church in the past. Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach (to you) a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be anathema!
However it has to be clear: obedience and respect to the authority in the Church are not an obligation
to accept something endangering the faith or the salvation of the souls. Because we received the priesthood
to transmit the treasure of the faith; to continue faithfully the work of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t have
authority to innovate. We cannot be an obstacle to the salvation of souls. If some catholic has some evidences
of this situation, he can disobey with peace of his conscience. We must obey God rather than men.
Remember: in our combat we must do everything with charity, including our differences. We cannot
judge anybody. Judge not and you will not be judged. We must defend the doctrine: we don’t need to attack
individuals. For we are disciples of a God of love and infinitely merciful: that is essential, don’t forget it.
Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall, because God gave it to us. So,
we cannot believe we are better than others. That we received, we received to benefit our neighbour,
everybody we encounter in our life.
I had to leave my Congregation because I stayed in the sad situation when we have to say “no” in conscience. I hope it will be not the same for you. And it will never be an obstacle for me to recognize all the good done by the Society of Saint Pius X.
We have not to be scandalized when we find some defects or errors – even if they are serious – between the members of the Holy Church. She is divine and human at the same time. She is teaching the true way to give us the holiness. But this way is hard for everybody: we are all sinners! Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. Imitate the mercifully and the very simple humility of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He has a big force – the same force that all the saints had: He is preaching very clearly, with a lot of simplicity, telling everybody the things he has to listen to. And at the same time He is very merciful and delicate with individuals: he report the sin and he accept to eat with sinners!
I finish giving you some parts of a Pastoral letter from Bishop Alain de Boismenu, who was a missionary for fifty years in one of the most difficult parts of the world in the last century: in “Papua”. He is explaining to his priests the doctrine of the Catholic Church, following the Popes, about the spirit of
conquest, the thirst for the salvation of souls. This spirit must be ours.
Before that, I ask you to pray for me: to obtain my fidelity to God, every day more. For Him to renew the features of Jesus Christ, the Holy Priest, in my soul. I hope you can help me with your friendship. On the altar I pray the divine Victim to bless you.
In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Father Jean Devaulx de Chambord †
Priest for eternity
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Pastoral letter of Bishop Alain de Boismenu (1870-1953)
Apostolic Vicar of Papua
On the Propagation of the Faith and the reign of Christ the King
Pius XI (in his Encyclical Rerum Ecclesiae) proclaims the supreme law of the Apostolate: the salvation of the greatest number. (...) Euntes ergo omnes docete. Spread the kingdom of Christ everywhere, bring salvation to all men, that is the only goal of the Church Militant, and therefore the major effort of her soldiers, our work for us, her most distant legionnaires. Anyone who has a mission to represent Jesus Christ
in this world, says the Pope, far from merely keeping his faithful, must make it his main responsibility to gain
Him new subjects. Conquest, therefore, is the primary function of the apostle. By his nature, he is a conqueror. And the goal of his life, the rule of all his efforts, should always be to win more souls for the empire of his Master. It is from us, Christ's priests, according to the moving reminder of the Pope, from whom He expects "the benefit of His Blood"; to us, His legates, to whom He has entrusted the message of
salvation and its progress in the world. (...)
This expansion, wide and fast, needs resources, material resources and especially freedom. Resources: ours are thin (...). World: our numbers are still today what they were twenty years ago (...). Freedom is what we lack the most to move forward (...).
While we wait especially from God the freedom and the means to perform the great evangelization His Vicar wants, let us already make, everyone in his sphere, the effort required. (...) Instruction first, says the Pope, and later "cathedrals and bishops!" I'll tell you what he means: later the grand buildings and good roads, later the great finished works! First the Faith and the salvation of the masses.
In fact, our ministry can not, immediately, win the day. It's obvious. But how will its pace be accelerated and its scope amplified, if it is dominated by the principle of salvation of the greatest number; if everyone, considering conquest as his main duty, organizes his work and his time, all his activity, in order to achieve and save without voluntary delay, the greatest number of souls confided to him.
Here, two methods are possible: settle down, leisurely and firmly in the centre of a district, devoting oneself entirely to create there an intense focus of Christian life and the Youth groups, whence later the Faith will radiate in the district and which will help greatly to its evangelization. Or, with a foot in
the door, take trips to evangelize the outlying tribes, without waiting for the development of future works.
The Pope prefers the second method, so that is the right one. The first preaching, wide and fast, will necessarily be basic. All that is necessary is that it brings salvation, with the necessary truths, to as many souls in distress as possible. That's the most important thing.
Pastoral visits will then periodically strengthen and develop the seed of faith, until, from the centre, Christian homes and schools add to it the influence of elites and the support of permanent catechists. So you say, my dear brethren, (...) I have among my people both Christians and pagans. All calling me. But the pagans more than the Christians, because their spiritual poverty is greater and their need of me the greater: Quomodo credent ei, quem non audierunt? Quomodo autem audient sine praedicante ?
I will organise my activity to facilitate the means of salvation to all, but according to the requirements of their spiritual poverty. That's what the order of Charity requires, and that's what governs the missionary apostolate. And that is why the Pope gives me as the primary duty the conversion of souls
still outside the Church: the conquest. Is this order of Charity always observed by us? Are not our dear Christians eating the infidels' portion of the fathers, leaving them, once again, the crumbs of the feast, to which nonetheless they are the first guests of God?
Figures of our Christian practice are usually very good. They cheer us (...). But isn't the number of our catechumens still modest, too modest for so many pagans, who (...) remain to be converted? Yet it is these unfortunate slaves of the devil who are most in need, they are the ones to whom the Divine Master calls us first, for the glory of His Father and the greatest joy of His Heaven.
(...) I know (...) the pagans of our old Christian communities are indifferent. We must at least make positive efforts to overcome their apathy, leave the house to reach these poor souls. For it is for us to go to them, as the Divine Master said and did. Waiting for them is not enough.
Above all, we need our priestly prayer and the prayer of our faithful to obtain for them the graces of conversion; you must then use the powerful attraction of love in all its forms: hospitality, services, care, even treats and all the exercises of goodness employed by the divine Model. Following His example, public and private appeals; without tiring, patiently take all the steps of a gently obstinate zeal which knows the
price of its efforts, even if they are unsuccessful.
(...) (As for the preparation of catechumens) In principle, keep the maximum duration of trial at one year, but do not be intolerant towards temporary failures, and know how to discern, despite setbacks, the goodwill sufficient to entitle Baptism and the will to leave the devil and go to God (...). For the future, we must give extensive credit to Baptism and its virtues. Easily we underestimate these supernatural forces, yet they are the main element of the formation of a Christian and guarantee perseverance more than anything. Obviously, we may expect failures, but we are too afraid of them, and aiming for what is better, we lose what is good.
It is a hundred times preferable to lead a large number of mediocre baptized faithful through fall to fall into heaven, than to have a small elite, leaving the rest outside. It is always the great law of charity which governs our apostolate to claim the number, and in order to obtain it, makes us apportion our relief to the needs.
This law will still assign to works of the future their rightful place among your pastoral duties. These works are essential to the Christian life (...). As such, they must exist and thrive in the care of the missionary, but they should not do so at the expense of his major work: the evangelization of the people, the pastoral ministry itself. (...) [May the priest] retain the freedom to fulfil his pastoral ministry generously, this duty
which is so much more important than everything else that it would be better to delay the development of specific works in order to fulfil it. (…)
Instead of simply seeking to draw Christian elites from your special Schools, aim to train catechists there. You will then have an elite teaching corps and you will have won everything. (…)
On that day, the last Sunday in October (...) we will celebrate the Feast of Christ the King (...). Preach to them then the sovereign rights of Christ over them, Him, their Saviour and their God, remind them of their filial obedience demanded by these rights and the great rewards they promise; tell them how many of their race still do not know about His kingdom and its blessings and pray with them on that day for the rapid
conversion of their heathen brethren. (…)
Oportet regnare illum.
Given at St-Pierre-de-Tsiria
June 11, 1926, feast of the Sacred Heart
Pius XII wrote to Bishop Alain de Boismenu:
“We are certainly very aware of in what eminent manner, (...) you have contributed to the growth of the Faith and the advancement of civilization in the most remote regions of the Church. (...) You've tirelessly spent forty-five years in the Government of Missions, first as coadjutor and then as Vicar Apostolic of remote Papua. And these dignities and special responsibilities every day stimulated your heart and diligent
care to promote the salvation of souls. The Catholic faithful, increased in number and virtue, the first native priests, the new native diocesan congregation of Handmaids of Our Lord, the successful development of Catholic schools and, in particular, new Missionary substations wisely and appropriately located with regard to the main stations demonstrate your pastoral expertise. And your pastoral concern is all the more clear when one remembers the vast expanse of the country compounded by the great difficulties of communication".
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| Fr. Jean de Chambord followed by his former Prior Fr. Vernoy. (Sanford, FL) |
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