Twelve Seminarians Receive Cassocks

February 2, Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, should be a very special feast to all Catholics. It was on this day that the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph presented the new born Baby Jesus to the Lord in the Temple. For it is written in the Law of Moses, "Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy unto the Lord." Every Jewish woman after giving birth to a male had to offer a sacrifice of two turtle doves or two young pigeons after the time of her purification. Thus, forty days after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary set out for the holy city of Jerusalem in obedience to the Law to thank the Lord for the birth of their Child, and to buy back their Child.

However, this feast is even more special to the Society of St. Pius X and its first-year seminarians. On this day the young seminarians present themselves as offerings to the Lord in His temple. They put off "the old man" and his garments, and put on "the new man" and the cassock, the livery of Christ's ministers. In the eyes of the world they are already priests, for the world sees only the externals, and the change of their attire is for the world the sign that these young men are servants of God and of His Church. They no longer now may act as they once did, for they are now, by their cassocks, set upon a candlestick, and their example must be a beacon of light to all that are in the world. That these twelve first-year seminarians received their cassocks in a beautiful Solemn High Candlemass was a most fitting way to celebrate this great feast of our Lady and to bring out splendidly the fact that they are to be as her Son, lights to the world.

This year, the first-year class is more varied than any previous class. It comprises eight young men from the U. S. A. (including one whose home is now in Norway), three from Australia, and one from Spain. They show well that the Church is truly universal and that the Society of St. Pius X, as part of the Church, is also universal, for she too fulfills Our Lord's prophecy: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations." We rejoice in the hope that God has called these young men to help continue the mission of this same Society and that they will in five years' time be raised to the holy priesthood, and like other Apostles, set the world on fire with the love of Jesus Christ.

Seminarians Visit Historic Virginia

After a long grueling Semester and the even more agonising mid-year examinations the seminarians of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary along with the Rector and Schola Master, Father Bourmaud, as well as one of the brothers, set out on a five day excursion to visit some of the historic battlefields of the Civil War. We left St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary on a cold winter's morning, February 3, and our destination was St. Athanasius Chapel in Vienna, Virginia, a town perfectly situated, and easily accessible to all the places we were to visit. Father Ronald Ringrose, a close friend of the Society, was to be our gracious host. His kind parishioners gave us top-notch treatment, welcoming us into their homes, and filling us until we couldn't eat any more.

Our first stop on the way to St. Athanasius was Fort McHenry in downtown Baltimore. This is the very same fort in which the British were held off by artillery fire all night long during the war of 1812, and where the flag was still waving in the morning, the flag which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star Spangled Banner," so dear to the hearts of all Americans. On February 4, we visited Mount Vernon, home of General George Washington, the Father of our Country. This is a handsomely kept estate, typical of a southern gentleman's home. We then visited the imposing George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was for several years Master of the local Masonic Lodge. That same day we visited our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., where we visited a museum of the Smithsonian Institute, which seemed to be little more than another propaganda device of our disordered modern world.

The following day February 5, after Mass and breakfast, we set out for some of the great battlefields of Virginia, visiting Wilderness, Chancellorsville, and Spotsylvania where we saw the famous Bloody Angle where the Confederates had been surrounded. In Chancellorsville we also saw a film of the battle. On the way to Monticello, however, the Blue Seminary Bus broke down, as a result of a shredded fan belt. Father Bourmaud thought this was an excellent time for the Schola to practice, and so they practiced the Kyriale for the next Mass of Ordination. While we were broken down, many kind Southerners stopped and asked if we needed assistance. They were very friendly, and possibly more than a little curious. After all, it's not every day one sees thirty-two clerics, wearing cassocks, no less, singing polyphony on the side of the road! This was the case with a man who stopped on the way to his Bible meeting. He just couldn't wait to find out what denomination we belonged to, and to start picking our brains to see exactly what we believed.

As you might have guessed, he was a "born again Christian", and he certainly knew his Bible. However, we held our own and even with our limited seminary training, were able to plant some doubts amidst his highly ambiguous arguments. After almost an hour of discussion, he invited us to his meeting, and after we had politely declined the invitation he left. Soon after, a State Trooper arrived with our new fan belt and we were on our way back to the chapel.

On February 6, we traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to visit perhaps the greatest battlefield of the entire Civil War, certainly a major turning point for the Union forces. Here General Pickett commanded 15,000 Confederates to charge the Union forces across an open field, of whom shortly after only 5,000 returned. While at Gettysburg we saw a brief film describing the battle and we watched a finely made presentation on an Electric Map, the many colored lights indicating the advance of the Union and Confederate forces, and the key positions of the battle. After this feature, we had a very interesting guided tour of the entire Gettysburg battlefield, seeing over 2,000 monuments and 400 cannons from the Civil War era.

From thence we drove on to the Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born Saint. We saw a slide show on Mother Seton and her work. Then we were taken over to what is called the White House, the second house obtained by the saint, where we viewed the very simple chapel in which she prayed and the same communion rail where she knelt to receive the King of Kings in Holy Communion.

Lastly we went to Mount Saint Mary's College and prayed at the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, where we also stopped a moment to reflect on the Stations of the Cross. Truly, this was the best way to end our trip. The next morning we started back to Ridgefield, and arrived safely after driving almost ten hours in a blinding snowstorm.

All of us certainly learned a great deal about our nation's history; for instance, that the Civil War wasn't fought so much over slavery (as our history books present it) as over the preservation of a whole way of life against the preservation of the Union.

French Movie Protested

On Saturday, March 1, Seminary professors Fr. Wolfgang Goettler, Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, Fr. Pierre Delaplace, along with thirty-four seminarians and Brothers, attended a local protest against the blasphemous movie Hail Mary. The movie, a so-called "piece of art" was shown for four days in South Norwalk, Connecticut, only twenty minutes from Ridgefield. There was an impressive turnout of people. Local papers reported that between 500 and 600 people attended on Saturday, this being the big night announced for several weeks in advance. The Seminarians sang the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Latin and Fr. Goettler led the Rosary.

There were many reporters with television cameras there, and they interviewed Father Goettler and countless other protestors. They had no desire, it seemed, to interview any of the fifty-odd cinema goers who showed up to watch the film. They did, however, interview the owner of the theatre who, when asked why he allowed the film to be shown, said, "Everybody has to make a living somehow."

It was easy to tell the whole evening was guided by Our Lady. Except for the bullying of a local T.F.P. group, all was peaceful. Faithful Catholics standing up and defending the honor of their Mother.

It was also a good chance for us to tell people about the Society and to tell them that there is a daily Latin Mass very close by. The people were very edified by the small army in black cassocks, and they thanked us immensely for coming and giving an example to the local clergy. There were only two Novus Ordo priests and one nun present!

Two days later, however, the diocesan bishop, H. E. Walter W. Curtis, appeared outside the cinema to give a few words of encouragement to the protestors still there. We are entitled to wonder if it was not because he had received several calls asking why Archbishop Lefebvre's seminarians had all been there to defend Our Lady's honor, but almost no clergy from the Diocese.