New Trad Syndrome and the Sacrificial Life
A newcomer to traditional Catholicism1 may very well find himself in the following circumstances: an initial euphoria at finally having discovered the Mass of All Time with its solemn rites; the traditional, unaltered sacraments; true doctrine; the real prospect of pursuing the spiritual life made possible by an abundance of literary works hitherto quite unfamiliar; the availability of confession without appointment; a bevy of unheard of customs and traditions to reinforce one’s faith in the majesty of Christ and true Catholic life; many spiritual retreats and conferences offered throughout the year; lastly, writings, seemingly without end, in the form of books, magazines, and online articles that deliver scores of perspectives on Traditional Catholicism, on the Crisis in the Church, on theological matters ancient and new. If this newcomer is anything like I was upon entering the great current of Tradition, he wishes to acquaint himself with every book, traditional blog, spiritual work, and ecclesiastical custom that touches upon it. He wishes to become as much a true zealot of Traditional Catholicism as the very embodiment of it. After a while, that euphoria slowly morphs into an unexpected dysphoria: intellectual confusion grows, for example, at the claims of sedevacantism, questions begin to loom large about the current papacy, a ceaseless cycle of fits-and-starts in the spiritual life ensues to the point of weariness or scrupulosity, a practice of weekly or monthly confession stretches out to every two months or longer. Habits quickly spun together unravel before one’s very eyes.
In a word, our newcomer to traditional Catholicism has become lost in Tradition and has, in fact, developed “New Trad Syndrome,” the main symptoms of which are intellectual and spiritual impetuosity concurrent with bafflement, fatigue, and plenty of imbalance. On the contrary, the native of traditional Catholicism acts in a completely different way. For there is a facile comportment and naturalness in the way he interacts with the traditions and customs of the Church, since he has grown up in them. For instance, he confesses regularly—maybe once per week or month—he actually sings hymns both in the vernacular and Latin as if they had been inscribed on his soul at birth; he might be a child or parent of a large family the members of which likewise seem to walk hand in hand with tradition in some sort of mysterious balance. I do not wish to suggest that the Catholic native to Tradition undergoes no spiritual or intellectual disquiet as the newcomer described above. We all are sinners. Caeteris paribus, however, the main difference between the native and newcomer lies in their point of origin: for the latter has trudged through the modernist wasteland of the Conciliar Church having received deep wounds and little to no spiritual and doctrinal food, while the former has been immersed in and well fortified by the ancient traditions of Holy Mother Church.
The difference is not negligible. Indeed, I have come across or heard of many well-intentioned newcomers who have imbibed all things traditional too quickly because they want to become fully, as it were, ‘nativized’ like their peers to traditional Catholicism. Sometimes this hasty process produces tragic consequences: a wife leaves her family due to the more rigorous requirements of tradition (Ember Day fasting, modesty in dress, veiling, family prayer, etc.), a teenage son or daughter rebels against the ancient faith because he does not believe it, or one simply becomes exasperated after many attempts to implement a self-taught spiritual program via books. Absent a personal guide to show one how to handle this pearl of inestimable worth, one way to avoid the pitfalls, moderate the excitement, or extract oneself from New Trad Syndrome is to mold oneself soberly, with the assistance of grace, to the notion of sacrifice which saturates the Catholic faith and especially that of the Mass.
The claim is very simple and ought to be uncontroversial: to live a truly Catholic life is to live a sacrificial life regardless of whether one is native or new to traditional Catholicism. Archbishop Lefebvre knew well the central importance this notion has within the lives of Catholics: “The notion of sacrifice is profoundly Christian and profoundly Catholic…To follow Our Lord carrying His Cross: such is the mystery of Christian civilization; this is the root of Catholic civilization.”2 Living a sacrifical life will support and strengthen one new to tradition by molding the good intentions of the newcomer and giving them proper direction. Let us then briefly consider what sacrifice is, the kinds of sacrifice, and finally how the newcomer can practically relate to tradition without developing New Trad Syndrome.
Regarding the theoretical component, it is worthwhile to quote from Fr. Gihr’s classic study, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There, he defines sacrifice as:
[T]he offering of a visible object, effected through any change, transformation, or destruction thereof, in order effectually to acknowledge the absolute majesty and sovereignty of God as well as man’s total dependence and submission.3
Note that this definition contains a formal and material element. The material component is any visible object that is offered: e.g., a dove, ram, ox, bread, wine, one’s mortifications; the formal component is the intention for which that object is offered: to acknowledge God’s absolute sovereignty and man’s absolute dependence on that divine sovereignty. Consequently, the material object becomes invested with the intention of the sacrificer.
This definition of sacrifice can be applied to many sorts of sacrifice , but only insofar as a relation to the principal and most perfect sacrifice of our Blessed Lord on Calvary and its re-presentation at Holy Mass is maintained.4 As foreshadowing that supreme sacrifice, for example, we find the Old Testament, especially the Mosaic books, replete with the notion of sacrifice in the various sacerdotal rites of animal and first fruit offerings. We also see atonement sacrifice, peace offerings, sin offerings all of which, according to St. Albert the Great, were tolerated but yet not pleasing to God.5 Additionally, there are frequent references to a sacrifice of praise, a humble heart, justice, vows, living by the divine commandments, and prayer.6 Each one of these examples of sacrifice in the OT takes a visible object, then transforms it (in the case of prayer and observing the just commands of God) or destroys it (in the case of animal oblations) with the intention of acknowledging the Almighty’s supreme dominion and man’s utter dependence upon it.
In like fashion do we encounter the notion of sacrifice in the New Testament writings. The Gospels, however, mention the actual term in only four passages. The first two passages come from St. Matthew7 where Our Blessed Lord quotes Osee 6:6 two times: “For I desired mercy, not sacrifice;” the third occurs in St. Mark8 where the scribe sums up the law of loving God and neighbor while glossing that to love one’s neighbor as oneself is better than “all holocausts and sacrifices”; and the fourth occurs in St. Luke9 at our Lord’s circumcision: “And to offer sacrifice, according as it is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” St. Paul too speaks of the one sacrifice for sins (Heb. 10:12); offering to God a sacrifice of praise through the name of Christ (Heb. 13:15); having received from his associates in the Gospel an acceptable sacrifice to God (Phil. 4:18); presenting to God our bodies as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1).10 And lest we wrongly infer from the infrequency of a term to its relative unimportance, our Lord also speaks to the disciples of His Own self-immolation: “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the ancients and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again” (Lk. 9:22). Read in conjunction with Lk. 9:23: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Considering the institution of the Eucharist, and our Lord’s teaching, one cannot but conclude that living a sacrificial life translates to being conformed to the cross of our Lord.
We conform ourselves to His Cross principally at Holy Mass which constitutes a rite by which Our Lord Jesus Christ perpetuates His sacrifice on Calvary through the action of His sacred minister. Consider the terms used in the Offertory where the priest beseeches God the Father to “receive this spotless host (hanc immaculatam hostiam)”11 and pleads to Him for the expiation of the sins of the living and dead that this sacrifice may instead profit them unto eternal life. Consider also the Canon of Mass where there are nine references to the sacrifice, oblation, or host12 on the altar notwithstanding numerous allusions throughout.13 Here we encounter the sacrficium sacrificiorum, the sacrifice exceeding any and every other sacrifice we could effect on our own. And it is to this sacrifice that all of our own personal offerings should be united so as to become meritorious by the precious blood of Christ.
Practically speaking, the degree of one’s commitment to conform to the Cross of Our Lord will vary according to the state of one’s life. Thus, the priest strives to live the vows of the religious but his divine task is to pray for the Church, celebrate the Mass, and save souls. Consequently, he becomes a man of God “set apart” to offer the premier sacrifice: that of our Lord. The religious has sacrificed the chance at an earthly inheritance in the hopes of inheriting a heavenly one. Each moment of the day becomes a sacrificial moment, when heeding the words of St. Paul to redeem “the time because the days are evil.” Religious daily transform themselves for the sake of Christ in a show of absolute self-abandonment by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. A secular celibate, unaffiliated to a religious congregation, has no other goal than to please the good God by offering the sacrifice of a chaste life and living according to the norms set forth by the Church. Finally, those souls of the married state, in lieu of pursuing their own interests, must learn how to sacrifice them for the sake of the family as a whole in accordance with the laws of God and the Church: to live chastely within the marriage bond, to educate and provide for their children, and so on. Thus, every soul must live some kind of sacrificial life and do so in virtue of their baptism and most especially in coupling themselves to the gentle yoke of our Master at Mass.
Having come in from the cold, so to speak, the newcomer must learn the craft of sacrifice so integral to traditional Catholic life instead of frenetically jumping into the dizzying experiences mentioned above.14 Here I can only list a few truncated, practical suggestions on what a newcomer to Tradition should initially do:
Let the newcomer beware that if married, he cannot live the life of a priest or religious. Everyone’s station comes with its own sacrificial limits, as it were, outside of which it would be absurd to step. Stick to the routine the priest fashions and let him judge your subsequent steps. For the lay newcomer, such a thing should not discourage him—he must simply consult his priest for the right balance to offer his life to Christ at Mass and throughout the day. Such is a sacrificial life; such is the Catholic’s life as the founder of the SSPX knew so well.
Endnotes
1 By “newcomer,” I understand a layperson coming from the Novus Ordo to Traditional Catholicism, itself an unfortunate but necessary phrase that describes those Catholics who embrace not only all doctrines taught infallibly by the Church’s Magisterium for nearly two millennia, but also those customs and rites developed within the life of the Church prior to Vatical II in contradistinction to liberal or even conservative post-conciliar Catholics.
2 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, The Mass of All Time, ed. Fr. Patrick Troadec and trans. by Angelus Press (Kansas, MO: Angelus Press, 2007): p. 67 (taken from the Archbishop’s Golden Jubilee sermon, Paris, September 23, 1973).
3 Rev. Dr. Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically, and Ascetically Explained (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1949-24th printing): p. 15. Let us distinguish the definition of sacrifice here and its perfect embodiment in Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary. While the definition may find application to non-Catholics, the distinctive feature about the Catholic life of sacrifice is how well it conforms to the Son of God’s sacrifice re-presented in the Mass. In this respect, I must caution one in reading Vicki Burbach’s, The Lost Art of Sacrifice (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2021), where this distinction is not so clear (see chapter 1 of her book). For the Eucharist as true sacrifice, see Fr. Peter Skarga, S.J., The Eucharist, trans. Edward Dworacyk (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1939): 3-16.
4 “Our life cannot be spent without sacrifice since Our Lord Jesus Christ, God Himself, willed to take a body like our own and say to us: ‘Follow Me. Take up your cross and follow Me if you will be saved’” (Archbishop Lefebvre, op. cit., p. 67).
5 Cf. Mal. 1:10, 2:13; Lev. 1:3-17; 4 passim, and 7 passim. And, S. Albertus Magnus, Opera omnia, ed. Borgnet (Paris 1899), vol. 38 (pages 1-189: De mysterio missae; p. 191-463: De corpore Domini): p. 128.
6 For a sacrifice of praise, see Ps. 106:22; 115:17; 49:14; 53:8; Jonas 2:10. For sacrifice of vows, see Ps. 49:14; Jonas 2:10. For a sacrifice by observing the commandments, see Ecc. 35:2; sacrifice of justice, Ps. 4:6; sacrifice of a humble and contrite heart, Ps. 50:19 and cf. Os. 6:6; sacrifice of prayer, Ps. 140:2.
7 Mt. 9:13, 12:7. On both occasions, Christ quotes Osee 6:6 against the Pharisees.
8 Mk. 12:33.
9 Lk. 2:24.
10 Acts 14:12 recounts the pagan priest about to offer sacrifice to Jupiter; in 1 Cor. 8:1, St. Paul counsels to forgo meat offered to idols as a potential stumbling block to others of the faith.
11 The Offertory anticipates the consecration as well as the post consecration prayer, Unde et memores and Supra quae, where the phrase immaculatam hostiam is mentioned twice more.
12 Hostia: victim or sacrifice.
13 At the prayer, Supra quae, the sacrifice of Abraham and the offering of Melchisedech are mentioned. Thus, they are included as direct types of Our Lord’s sacrifice. Note well the main statement of His sacrifice in the consecration formula of the wine where His blood is shed unto the remission of sins.
14 Heed the words of St. Augustine: Evitando vivit anima quae appetendo moritur (The soul begins to live when it avoids the desires that bring it to death,” Confessions, 13.30). These are the first steps of the spiritual life, viz., shunning the occasions of sin, which is more important than reading every book on the Church Crisis or spiritual life.
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