July 2024 Print

By Angeline Tan

One of four Marian antiphons sung at different times within the liturgical year of the Catholic Church, the Salve Regina (“Hail Holy Queen”), extols the virtues and goodness of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Typically, Catholics recite this beautiful prayer at the end of the Rosary, calling upon the Holy Virgin Mary as our “Holy Queen” and “Mother of Mercy.”

From her very “Fiat” to become the Mother of God to her unflinching confidence that the Crucifixion and Death of Her Son Jesus was not the end of the story of Redemption, the Blessed Virgin Mary believed that God had “a future with hope” (Jer. 29:11) in spite of the untold sufferings Jesus had to suffer in His Passion. The Mother of God is the embodiment of the virtue of hope.

Hope is regarded as a theological virtue as its immediate object is God. The Catechism of Saint Pius X¹ states that “hope is the virtue by which we firmly trust that God will give us eternal life and the means to obtain it.”

Unfortunately, given the huge crisis in Holy Mother Church where many influential churchmen in the Vatican are seeking to undermine traditional Church teachings by claiming to “update” them, including through the bombshell document Fiducia Supplicans published on December 18, 2023, an increasing number of faithful Catholics are tempted to give up hope.

Moreover, the rising violence against Catholic churches and crisis pregnancy centers, the “canceling” of faithful Catholics from social media platforms, from their jobs and even from society because of their non-compliance with woke ideologies like the LGBTQ+ agenda, and the seeming reticence of the Vatican in matters such as these, have prompted many practicing Catholics to fall into despair and make statements like, “There’s no Pope,” “the Church is finished” or “the Novus Ordo Mass is always invalid.”

To exacerbate matters, the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 displaced many faithful Catholics from their local parishes, with lockdown policies preventing them from even going to Confession and receiving Our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. Under government pressure worldwide, churches were forced to (or voluntarily) closed, with many bishops banning the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

In contrast, the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) worked tirelessly to provide the Sacraments to their flock, celebrating outdoor Masses and even in some cases quadrupling the usual number of Sunday Masses to adhere to social-distancing guidelines. Unsurprisingly, the number of attendees at SSPX Masses increased by leaps and bounds, thus increasing the number of people coming into contact with the Traditional Latin Mass.

While some Catholics attended Mass at SSPX chapels out of necessity, many remained even after the government-imposed bans were lifted. This tide of newcomers to the SSPX and converts to traditional Catholic teaching and the Tridentine Mass is a source of jubilation. At the same time, adjusting to life in Tradition is not always easy.

This article will focus on the need that new traditional Catholics have to maintain the virtue of hope and not allow frustration with the Church and the world to damage their spiritual health.

Difficulties in Newly Acquired Knowledge

One thing that many experience when coming to Tradition is a new and deeper understanding of Catholic truth. They see clearly now the importance of each dogma, the spiritual drama of sin and grace, the richness of the Mass. At the same time, they recognize that the treasures of their faith have either been truncated or hidden from them in a vast Conciliar project to appease the modern world and non-Catholics. They understandably feel upset and betrayed by their local parishes and bishops.

Being “red-pilled” into Tradition is a grace, but it is also a spiritual test. The soul is granted access to a world of greater knowledge of the Catholic faith, but also a greater understanding of human failing. How will it react?

Some allow anger to take root in their souls, an anger which can lead to a despondency and indignation that can devour one’s spiritual life and perspective of Holy Mother Church.

Frustration with Church authorities’ behavior, including disgust at widespread abuses both among prelates and laity alike, might even tempt some faithful Roman Catholics to absorb themselves in consuming negative news, think the reigning pope is no longer pope, leave the Roman Catholic Church in favor of schismatic groups like the Orthodox, or even give up practicing the Faith altogether. In this situation, their greater knowledge of the evils in the Church and the world leads to despair which then leads to the betrayal and abandonment of Our Lord.

Others believe that they must “figure everything out” and immerse themselves in obsessive reading about the New Mass, the status of the Pope, and the various tribes of traditional Catholics, so that they can make perfect decisions for their Catholic life. They wade into blogs, comboxes, and Twitter feeds, exposing themselves to an interminable Internet crossfire. In the midst of all the noise and smoke, they quickly lose the clarity they gained in coming to Tradition and either gravitate towards extreme and unbalanced positions or despair about there being any truth at all.

The prudent convert to traditionalism recognizes that he is neither able to fix the problems in the Church nor understand perfectly the mystery of its crisis. His job is rather to correspond to the graces that God has given him, using them for his spiritual benefit.

This is accomplished firstly by benefitting spiritually from the newly-discovered treasures of the Church. Many faithful Catholics who have just discovered the beauty of the Tridentine Liturgy have expressed their gratitude for such a gift, understandably distancing themselves away from Novus Ordo Masses. But how many of them make an effort to study the Mass or to attend Masses during the week? This is the Mass that made the saints, and new trads should have an ambition awakened in them to become saints through the Mass.

Faithful yet exasperated Catholics can also make advances in their spiritual lives via the rich array of centuries-old Catholic devotions, including the Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows, the Holy Face of Jesus Devotion, Devotion to St. Joseph, and so on. By setting aside time to meditate on the Passion and Death of Our Lord, they can grow even closer in union with Him. Surely one grace that God desires above all from a coming to Tradition is a stronger prayer life.

Another important antidote to devolution into jaded rad-tradism is an attitude of gratitude. Happiness is not getting what we want but wanting what we have. Despite the situation of the world and the Church, we have a great measure of blessings, far more than we deserve. If we are regularly asking ourselves what return we can make to Our Lord for all that He has done for us rather than trying to figure out why He is allowing His Church to be in a crisis, we will be able to maintain purity of intention and a supernatural attitude in our traditional life.

One blessed opportunity that hopefully traditional Catholicism opens up for all is a greater measure of charity. Knowledge of evils done by others should motivate prayers for them and patience towards them. Instead of mulling endlessly over how the reigning Pope or another influential Vatican churchman has made another equivocal statement that seems to deviate from traditional Church teaching, we can instead pray for their spiritual edification in our daily rosaries and Holy Masses. Through Our Lady of Fatima, God calls all Catholics to pray and sacrifice for others who are still blinded by the numerous crises plaguing the Church and the world today, or who may even be part of the problems themselves.

The supernaturally savvy new trad will especially recognize that the solution to the problems of the Church and the world is holiness. Our Lord asks traditional Catholics to live in the state of grace, to practice virtue in the home and the workplace, to be pillars of their Catholic communities. The desire to practice holiness and spread holiness by example is both a manifestation of a supernatural spirit and a means to maintain that spirit.

Humility Is the Remedy

An important way for all Catholics to be aware of the evils in the Church and the world and still be stable in their faith is through the fostering of the virtue of humility. Humility is the very foundation of the spiritual life. Because it leads a soul to acknowledge his own nothingness before God, the soul is content with remaining a creature, is much less tempted to question God’s providence or decisions, and does not waste important spiritual resources on fruitless angst regarding the evils of the world.

In his classic work Humility of Heart, Fr. Cajetan da Bergamo explains how humility assists the virtue of hope. It keeps the soul from both a lack of hope (despair) and too much hope (presumption). “To fix our thoughts solely on our own wretchedness might cause us to fall into self-distrust and despair, and in the same way to fix our thoughts solely on the contemplation of the Divine Goodness might cause us to be presumptuous and rash. True humility lies between the two.”²

In other words, humility provides the balance that a new traditional Catholic needs, when acquiring at the same time a greater knowledge of the riches that the Church offers and the evils present in this world. It enables him to avoid bitterness while pursuing holiness, to seek happiness in the pursuit of virtue rather than in the pursuit of unattainable outcomes.

Consider how St. Paul was preaching the Gospel in the midst of a pagan world run by the narcissistic emperor Nero. He was unjustly accused by the Jews, put in prison for years, without being able to obtain a semblance of a fair trial through the Roman justice system. Yet he gave no sign of descending into despair or bitterness; on the contrary, his epistles breathe a beautiful spirit of hope and trust in God. His epistles were not about politics or his enemies, but about advancing in virtue, as when he wrote to the Ephesians: “I therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity” (Eph. 4:1-2). These are the same virtues that we need in our modern times.

The Cross Is the Crux of the Christian Life

All that is required for us Catholics grappling with the doctrinal and moral crises within and without the Church today is to deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Our Lord Jesus Christ—admittedly, taking up the cross is not easy!

As there would be no Resurrection without Christ’s Passion and Death, so there would be no spiritual resurrection from our sins and faults without embracing the crosses God permits in our lives, including the cross of doctrinal and moral confusion within Holy Mother Church.

If God is calling us to embrace our crosses, surely He will give us the graces to carry them, notwithstanding our natural human repugnance to suffering.

We could even try to be healthily detached from our edifying aspirations that the Church be spiritually healthy and thriving. Moreover, we can submit ourselves to God’s Will in resignation. After all, God has His reasons for permitting such doctrinal and moral confusion within the Church today, perhaps as a chastisement for our lukewarmness and as a reminder for us to remain vigilant against our enemies, visible and invisible.

Our Lord Jesus Christ Will Triumph Eventually

Notwithstanding whatever doctrinal mess the Church is in now, we should constantly remind ourselves that Our Lord Jesus Christ will triumph in the end, for He told Simon Peter:

“And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matt 16:18)

Over the centuries, despite having been seemingly defeated time and time again, our holy Catholic religion has, as G.K. Chesterton says, “died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”³

The Blessed Virgin Mary—Our Life, Our Sweetness and Our Hope

Last but not least, let us always invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary, “our life, our sweetness and our hope.” Our Lady, Cause of Our Joy, is the Mother of the One who was the hope of Israel, the Mother of those “who were looking for the consolation of Israel (Lk. 2:25). She is the “Valiant Woman” or “Mulier fortis” in the Book of Proverbs 31:10-31 who “stood by the cross of Jesus” (Jn. 19:25).

“Spe salvi facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom: 8:24).

Let us invoke the Holy Virgin Mary always in the Memorare because “never was it known, that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.”

Endnotes

¹ Catechism of St. Pius X: EWTN. EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. (n.d.). https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/catechism-of-st-pius-x-1286.

² Cajetan da Bergamo, Humility of Heart (Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books), paragraph 66.

³ G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), Part 2, Chapter 6.