Truth Speaks to the Heart - An Email from a Friend

Editor's Comment: I received this touching email from a friend after she read Two Clear-Sighted Articles about Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX Controversy which I posted a few days ago. She was originally concerned about my attending the SSPX Masses, but has since changed her mind. Why? Because she does the research. She is a persistent truth-seeker and I'm privileged to call her friend. 

Don't misunderstand her statements on faith at the end of her email. She is not talking about making up your own faith, a la Martin Luther and the Protestant revolutionaries. She is talking about preserving the Faith of our Fathers as handed down for two millennia. Archbishop Lefebvre was determined to pass on what he had received and not to adopt a "new religion", one that now puts Pachamama on the altar with Christ and blesses the congregation with a guitar as it moves inexorably towards women's ordination. That is the church of the iconoclasts trying to complete the destruction of the faith desired by Cromwell, Cranmer and Elizabeth. The question is, do we have the courage of the English recusants who were willing to die for the Mass?

The Email:

"The biggest dilemma faces Priests who, up to now, have said both the Novus Ordo and the True Mass habitually. In the past, the altar might have to be hastily re-covered following a True Mass when the priest would re-enter the sanctuary a few minutes later to celebrate a completely different feast in the new rite. It is hard to understand how the same priest can say both rites if, as the Vatican now asserts, they represent contrary religions. They need our prayers now more than ever." Joseph Bevan

 The quote above is from one of the two articles you put in a post about SSPX.  It expresses a dilemma that I have most recently recognized not just for the priests but for EVERY CATHOLIC.  

If Rome now readily admits and speaks of the Novus Ordo as a new religion how can any of us think it is OK to go to first one and then the other as it suits our schedule?  

I did look up on You Tube and watched the movie about Lefebvre.  It is awesome!  I am incredibly impressed with his clarity and simplicity.  We all are given a "style", I suppose, through which we express ourselves, but something I noticed some time ago is the fact communists and liars and deceivers are notoriously wordy.  

 Truth can be told in a few words. 

The Devil it seems to me hopes to convince people of his veracity by confusing the listener/reader into believing him because of the depth or length or novelty or innovation or complexity of his statements.  (Chardin was a master at this!)  All of this garbledy gook is meant to impress and intimidate and invoke timid submission.  And very often it does. 

I actually first noticed this reading Witness by Whitaker Chambers.  In one section of the book, two testimonies, that of Chambers and of Alger Hiss, taken from court records appear one after the other.  Each is independently asked to answer the same question.  Chambers' answers are as brief as three sentences whereas Hiss's answers go on and on and on.  

I bought a copy of Lex Orandi for me and for a friend who expressed interest in it.  I am near the end of chapter one on Bsptism and I am stunned!!!!!!! at the difference.  No one needs to tell me Novus Ordo is a new religion.  What else could one call it?  On page eight in the Introduction, the author says:

"This book is not a criticism of Novus Ordo Catholics.  ...... Most believe incorrectly that the Novus Ordo rites are merely the old Latin rites translated into English."

 Thank you, Mary Ann, for pointing me to this book.  I don't think I am a "Novus Ordo Catholic".  I, like many, am just trying to be Catholic with what I've been given and led by the Church to believe is good.  I no longer believe that at this point, but I have no idea what to do about it in my situation in Fairfax Virginia.  I very very much want to practice the pre-vatican II faith and use the uncorrupted Sacraments but the Church has abandoned me and millions for the sake of ecumenism.  

Thank God Lefebvre said I will not serve error.  It's a funny thing to me---almost laughable....  that Rome thought they could stall Lefebvre until he was dead and now SSPX is outliving Lefebvre's enemies in Rome.  😊  Francis will be dead soon and SSPX is alive and well.   I've decided it won't matter one iota what Rome or all the bishops in the world say at this point.  Faith is a gift from God and Rome has no authority over it but to preserve it.  And if Rome does not, judgement will be on them.