Archbishop Lefebvre: Saviour of the Religious Life
This is an edited transcript. Due to time constraints, an abbreviated form of this conference was given on October 17 at the SSPX’s 40th Anniversary Conference in Kansas City.
When the Archbishop visited us while I was in France, he would bring his crosier that said “PAX”–peace, which is the motto of the Benedictines. May I use these words from our Breviary: “Propter fratres meos et proximos meos loquebar pacem de Te–Because of my brethren, because of those who are closest to me, I shall speak peace of Thee” (Ps. 121), may I apply these great words to the memory of His Grace Archbishop Lefebvre, Saviour of the Religious Life, which is the title of this conference.
While preparing this conference I asked for some assistance from the other religious orders established by the Archbishop. I am happy to say that these few words come from the combined efforts of many vocations who were inspired to pursue their religious life under the influence of the Archbishop. Every word is either a direct or indirect quote of the Archbishop’s personal advice, sermons, spiritual conferences and diverse writings. The references are mostly from memory, if this were typed out, every line, every remembrance would continue off the page. The Archbishop was very generous to us and his words flowed as water from a fountain.
The Archbishop’s Religious Vocation
To hear the Archbishop speak, was always a reminder of his own vocation. He had responded to the same call of God, as it is for every vocation. He was first of all attracted to the religious life through relatives and family friends. God unites disparities and contingencies, disposing all things with wisdom so that the greatest good is granted to the greatest number of souls in what appears to be a single action. The Archbishop’s vocation was the same, one calling that saved all of us. Bishop Tissier has given us the masterwork on the Archbishop’s life, while Mother Marie-Christiane, the Archbishop’s younger sister and foundress of the Carmels of Tradition as we know them today has recounted the close-up story of the Archbishop’s vocation. These works have been published much to the edification of the faithful.
The vocation is the most secret, the most hidden, the most intimate part of one’s life. What do we do when God calls, how do we talk about this great secret which is, per force, the putting into words of what God has said to us beyond human words?
To speak about the personal vocation of Archbishop Lefebvre, we can understand something of this secret part of his life by looking at what it has provoked in the Church: vocations! Hundreds upon hundreds of vocations have been the ripple effect of this one vocation.
Vocation begets vocation. It is a lesser known fact that the Archbishop’s parents were drawn to the religious life, his father in particular had wanted to enter the monastery while still a young man. In many cases the vocation is born in the parents but lived out in the children. This would be the precise case of the Archbishop.
The vocation is something given and something received. It is a tradition in the sense of transmission, a communication on the highest level of our life. Religious pass on something of their vocations to their followers, as priests who lay their hands on the heads of the ordinands to the priesthood. A vocation is a treasure, “the pearl of great price.” This analogy would especially describe the Archbishop’s personal vocation which has been so much more than just a positive influence for each of us.
Relictis Retibus
Every vocation that has in some way been influenced by the Archbishop is already a story in itself, mine is no exception. Although the Archbishop was famous for his great balance and discretion when speaking on matters of the life of the Church: his voice was indeed a faithful echo of the teachings of the popes; but whenever he spoke with his own words there was a sounding out to our ears, something also of the resonance of the teaching Magisterium of the Church. Upon hearing his words we were all consoled by this voice, which in his sermons and conferences, spoke a language with such doctrinal clarity and inspiration, it was like a clarion call to join a new crusade, to drop everything, to “leave our nets behind” to come and serve the Church. As religious: Carmelites, Franciscans, Dominicans or Benedictines, we were following the example of not only a great archbishop, but also that of a religious who had already lived our vocation on the universal level of the Faith.
We heard a call not from a charismatic leader attracting a dazed crowd of blinded and fanaticized devotees, but rather from God himself, who speaks through his most worthy intermediaries. The Archbishop influenced us as one who had lived and suffered as a persecuted servant of the Church. In this same context, he gave us his usual enthusiastic advice to go ahead without fear, entrusting everything to God’s Providence. We knew that this was indeed what he himself had done, for to move forward as soldiers embarking on a great mission, without fear and trusting in God’s Providence, is the lifelong story of the Archbishop’s vocation.
I can speak with confidence on behalf of every vocation that has been influenced by him, that we all knew that he had already experienced what we were about to accept as the terms and conditions of our own personal vocations.
A Vocation Born of War
A child gifted with an even temperament and cheerful disposition, he was the favorite of the seven Lefebvre children. His older brother was a brilliant student and was already moving towards the seminary. Two of his sisters also entered the religious life.
The Archbishop was a child during the First World War. France was occupied by the German army where the Lefebvre family lived, not far from Belgium, where the Germans had entered France. The hardships imposed on his family as well as upon his own soul endowed him with a realist lucidity beyond his years.
The evil of war was on his daily horizon as he watched the casualties arrive at the hospital across from his home. He could see and hear the artillery of several battlefields nearby. The hatred and futility of war affect children for life. Perhaps, knowing that his father had died in a concentration camp, there was something about this he would never talk about with us. He would later become a soldier and later on as a bishop, would keep something of the fighting spirit of the soldier in his desire to serve his heavenly country. From a young age he resolved to do something significant for the salvation of souls through the most valid and effective means possible, through the religious life of the Church. In the years before he would make his decision regarding his vocation, he would visit the sick and destitute as a leading member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, where the first secrets of his great spirit of charity would be hidden by him but revealed by everyone else. As an altar boy at Mass he would have to go to church very early in the morning by secret routes so as to evade the German soldiers on patrol, even boys would be dealt with according to the laws of the police state. Young Marcel indeed risked his life for the Mass, but beyond the fact that all boys love danger, here we have a prophetic foreshadowing of his future vocation.
A Monk Reveals His Future
It was suggested that Marcel go and visit a monastery in order to meet with a holy monk who was known to have a gift of prophesy. A Trappist monk, Fr. Alphonsus, would dispel all the doubts Marcel was having about his vocation. Not thinking he could rise up to the greatness of the priesthood and its demands, and doubting his aptitudes for the studies which he knew would be all in Latin, he imagined himself being a religious brother instead, like St. Francis of Assisi. Upon meeting young Marcel, there was no waiting for questions and answers. In prophetic tones, Fr. Alphonsus declared to the young man, “You will be a priest...you must be a priest.”
From that moment, there would be no more doubts, and his reference to the influence of monks would remain with him the rest of his life. He made his religious vows with the Holy Ghost Father on September 8, 1932.
The Need for More Religious Vocations
The practice of charity towards souls meant the increase of religious helpers in the apostolate.
In establishing missions and parishes, the Archbishop would always insist on the one element of success, the necessary stability of the faith through the presence of religious, especially contemplative religious who would be the prayerful though invisible support of the good activism of the missions.
As religious we rejoiced in hearing his words expressing the desire that for every seminary there might also be a contemplative Carmelite community nearby, and alluding to our own monasteries, he said that without more monasteries, without more souls given to a life of prayer and intercession, the Church would never be revived from the present crisis. Such was his vision of the inseparable work of action and contemplation, the two halves of the whole which constitute the integrity of the nature of the Church.
Throughout his entire career as missionary, priest, archbishop, superior general and apostolic vicar under two popes; he always brought religious to his various places of ministry. As Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he was already preparing to strengthen the American province according to this same principle. We can only dream of the way the situation would be today had the Archbishop come to America sooner. Had he not been voted out of authority by the progressive elements within the order, the situation in the American parishes served by the Holy Ghost Fathers might have survived the shock of Vatican II. The story of Fr. Charles Coughlin makes reference to the high caliber of the apostolate of the Holy Ghost Fathers, since he shared his rectory in Detroit with Holy Ghost Fathers, one of them he extolled in one of his last sermons as “a saint in heaven.”
His Shining Example As a Religious
When the Archbishop dressed in his ordinary black cassock, he would keep his black missionary cord as a cincture instead of the broad sash proper to the Roman clergy. He thus maintained his religious habit of the Holy Ghost Fathers until the end of his life. It was a small sign, very typical of his modesty and discretion, but it was an eloquent witness, a statement that he always considered himself a religious. His own attachment to the religious state was a reminder to us that we should have the same sense of fidelity in little things. Is not our religious life, as well as the ideal of the Catholic family life, indeed a mountain of little details? These little signs are more than symbols, they are effective means of holiness.
His room at Ecône was plain and undecorated, far from being the palace of an archbishop, nor was it the bare cell of a monk, it was something in between, understated as was his usual taste. The only decoration in the room was the only one necessary: his radiant smile and his charity towards visitors. We had to make an appointment, for he was in great demand. When we visited him, he would sit in a wooden chair at his small desk and make us sit in the plush chairs, which he would tease us about. When it was your turn, time seemed to stand still and there was no sense of being in a hurry. He was very discreet in giving advice and never imposed his counsels. He spoke rather as a friend speaks to a friend, or as a father speaks to a son who has reached maturity.
As a quality of being a true religious, he seemed to be the most joyful amidst the greatest moments of suffering and persecution. I recall him laughing and joking around with us just when the greatest threats were looming ahead. He was a big teaser, and when I traveled all the way to Ecône to complain that this foundation project was getting the best of me, and that I was ready to through in the towel, he said to me, “Father, you must take more vitamins!”
The Crisis of Vocations
The greatest revelation concerning the Archbishop’s personal vocation seems to come from his own personal pen as he writes to his confreres in the context of the crisis of the faith as it began to invade the world of religious vocations. Just before the Second Vatican Council we hear the superior general preparing his religious missionaries for something great, for the expectations of the potentially great fruits of the Council were already being anticipated with much enthusiasm, especially on the part of superiors.
His very first letter as Superior General begins with the echo of this enthusiasm: it is the eve of the opening of the council:
St. Paul said to St. Timothy...stir up the grace of God which is in you. I feel unable to resist the desire to speak to you. The Council will be a great event in the life of the Church...
Then almost like the aftermath of a great bombardment, as the Council ends, the crisis intensifies, a massive loss of faith erupts, and thousands of priests and religious are abandoning their vows, returning to the world which was once their mission land of evangelization.
The Archbishop had received an exceptional formation just for this moment, it seems, and was well prepared for this turn for the worse, and he would pinpoint the causes which he had seen coming with his own eyes.
We read and hear a voice crying in the wilderness at this famous intervention at the General Chapter of the Holy Ghost Fathers dated September 1968, just when the volcano erupted. This would be his last attempt to restore order in the ranks.
The bombs of confusion were landing throughout the Eternal City and so the Archbishop sought to get away for a few days retreat in Assisi. Under the influence of the founders of the Franciscan order, as his middle name is François, he shares the fruits of peace and meditation, contemplating the writings of the founders who had inspired him to join the religious order of which he would be, in all probability, the last superior general. He sees this as perhaps the last chance and the final means to save his order.
Let us be frank and clear about this; no hot air, no fine literary phrases, no poetry; let us speak plainly. Do we want the authentic religious life?...Let us return to obedience, and chastity, and poverty...under the leadership of a superior and in a community, which adopts and upholds the rule....Otherwise the renewal we desire and await will be an illusion. The evil tendencies of individualism and freedom will be confirmed, our society will become a caricature of a religious congregation, with members who are not religious at all, and a caricature of community life where anarchy and disorder reign, and each individual is free to do as he pleases. These tendencies have already clearly manifested themselves. I warn those who are allowing themselves to be influenced, and who think they are doing the right thing by casting their votes in this direction, I beseech them to read the writings of our founder and to seek their inspiration and their decision there, not in modern trends which will wreck the Congregation.
The Archbishop here quotes from the writings of Fr. Francis Libermann:
If it has pleased God to treat us so harshly, it is to punish us mercifully for our sins. Clearly He seems to want us to save this world more by our own sanctification than by our zeal; I mean that it seems to be God’s holy will that we should live, while in the midst of these [mission] peoples, a thoroughly holy life, paying particular attention to the practice of the priestly and religious virtues of humility, obedience, charity, meekness, simplicity, the life of prayer and self-denial. Let us devote ourselves to cultivating these virtues....
The Archbishop weighs his words and names off the essential requirements for effective apostolate in his own words:
Holiness is essentially apostolic. And the apostolate demands holiness. We are determined to provide our religious with the means and conditions which will permit our members to always seek and to acquire holiness. Also required are exceptional and heroic qualities of patience, adaptability, perseverance, enlightened faith, and unfailing character–in short, outstanding holiness. It is with full knowledge of the facts, clarity of vision, understanding of human nature, and a remarkable spirit of faith that the means for sanctification are defined for us: The religious life, the life of self-denial, the life of prayer, the life of fraternal charity, all of which are necessary for achieving holiness and apostolic zeal or practical union with Our Lord which brings about the spread of holiness.
The religious life is the means above and beyond all others and this means needs to be the focus of all our attention and concern.
If they are holy religious they will save souls; if they are not, they are nothing, for God’s blessing is attached to their holiness. (Adapted from Lettres Pastorales et Ecrits )
Shortly after these words were spoken the Archbishop was voted out of office as Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the position was abolished and henceforward replaced by a committee. As he departed, it was suggested to him to retire and to take a long vacation in America! Though this was a most humiliating and inappropriate counsel, how we wish, in some sense, that he could have realized this so-called vacation, coming to our country sooner. Yet we see how his presence in America is being fulfilled today far beyond our most fervent hopes and expectations!
Et Nos Credídimus Caritati
Armed only with his coat of arms “We have believed in Charity,” the Archbishop took up residence in Rome. The rest would be the living-out of the miracle of God’s Providence–“La Providence.” To trust in the providence of God. It was his favorite expression!
He would soon be sought out, leaving his retirement in order to come to the aid of priests and seminarians who would eventually form the first generation of the Society of St. Pius X.
“Et nos credidimus caritati ”: The inscription is famous. It reveals the secret of his vocation and permanent mission inspired by the Holy Ghost. “We believe in Charity”–the explanation is sublime. Faith: we believe. Charity: Love. We have believed in Love. It is the very definition of God. Only God is love. Only what comes from God can be love...
Faith and Charity: the twofold spirit of the Archbishop as represented on his episcopal coat of arms. This twofold spirit of the Archbishop resembles another St. Elias who was about to rise to heaven in a flaming chariot; we know this story well from our reading of Sacred Scripture. Eliseus, the faithful disciple of St. Elias, asked one last grace before the saint would depart, one final favor of the great saint. This was to be the heir of his mysterious “twofold spirit,” then Eliseus received the mantle of the saint as he departed in the whirlwind.
Have we not also asked to be heirs of this “twofold spirit” of the Archbishop, and has he not said “yes” to us every day of our lives, ever since that day when everything was supposed to come to an end with his forced retirement, that ending which has become our beginning.
Have we not, each and every one of us here present, have we not received as our inheritance the great twofold spirit of Faith and Charity? Has that coat of arms not been our shield of protection as well? And have we not worked wonders with his miraculous mantle–the garment of grace, of sanctifying grace received exclusively through the traditional form of each of the seven sacraments? Or would this miraculous clothing not also be the vestments he blessed and placed on our shoulders, the wedding gowns worn by Catholic brides who received the traditional nuptial blessing, the habits of the religious orders brought back to life–all of this holy controversy stirring disbelief to the eyes of the world at the glorious ascent of St. Elias.
A Rule of Faith and Charity
The Archbishop’s great love of the religious life is reflected in the establishment of the Society of St. Pius X. He composed the rule for his priests while on retreat in a Benedictine monastery. He wanted the Rule of St. Benedict to be the invisible foundation beneath his own rule for his priestly society. He wanted the spirit of this rule to be the inspiration for his rule.
He combined the writings of his own founders with something of the monastic life in order to create a new generation of clerical and religious life, as well as an effective support for the life of the laity.
Why Become a Religious of Tradition?
As a Religious who owes his vocation to the influence of the Archbishop, I summarize this final and definitive role of positive influence in the three words that have been ringing like bells throughout these three days of conferences: Fidelity, Integrity and Continuity.
In seeing the habits of many religious orders represented at this event, I hope to answer the question: Why do we decide to become religious who are branded by that condemning name of Lefebvrist, or Lefebvrian which is a little better since it doesn’t rhyme with terrorist...? By being so named, it is said that we are rebels, it is said that we are not really and truly religious, that we have no right to call ourselves validly and legally who we are, that our works are successful in all appearances, but that we have chosen a separate peace.
Why have hundreds of religious accepted as part of their vocation to be marginalized by the Conciliar establishment, to be accused of pretending to be religious, persecuted by other religious orders, to be considered excommunicated, to be forbidden and threatened to the point of lawsuits for calling themselves Dominicans, Carmelites, Benedictines, Franciscans, whose habit the Archbishop has encouraged them to wear? Not to mention the religious who come under the direct protection of the Society.
In answering the call we accept that we will not be welcome, neither in the local parish church, nor in the order having its official house in Rome. We accept that the local bishop will warn the faithful that we are not part of the Church, and that it will be a mortal sin to pass through the gates of our monasteries and convents.
Fidelity to the Lineage of Holiness
Fidelity: You have heard this word throughout these conferences.
It would be difficult to argue our position if the only motive we could produce in our self-defense would be some sort of fanatical or superstitious attachment to a leader who thinks and acts for us, hiding behind this person and taking shelter from criticism. This would have vanished with the death of the Archbishop. But, to the contrary, there has been an increase of vocations since his death.
What attracted most vocations who have chosen to follow the Archbishop has been the desire to belong to the lineage of holiness which has marked all of his works. What greater superior can be found than one like the Archbishop who is concerned for the holiness of his subjects? He knew that the religious life cannot be lived without the desire for sanctity. The personal vocation of the Archbishop has been the proof of this holiness. His famous intervention in Rome we outlined a few moments ago did not fall upon deaf ears. The new generation of traditional religious has taken to heart every word of that moving speech. The Archbishop would say it again and again: “Faith gives us fidelity. Fidelity is the requirement for holiness, it is our promise to God.”
Faith Is Greater Than Obedience
Obedience is the highest of the moral virtues but still comes after the theological virtue of Faith in the hierarchy of all the virtues. The obedience to our ancient rules and to the true spirit of canon law, to the teachings of the successors of St. Peter, especially in matters which touch upon the religious life, is what we mean by formal obedience. This is the virtue of obedience as explained by the doctors of the Church and her greatest theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas. This is the obedience practiced by Our Lord during his passion, when he would prefer the will of his Father to his own will.
This obedience is one of the four virtues of the Passion as listed by St. Thomas Aquinas, the other three being charity, patience and humility. The true virtue of obedience in the imitation of Christ is the virtue which saves souls. It is the obedience which is from the Cross of our Redeemer, the obedience which opened the side of our Saviour to reveal his Sacred Heart and to cause his Precious Blood to flow forth unto the redemption of souls. This is the obedience which is the foundation of religious life.
“Whenever I go to Rome they want me to sign something! I must give some kind of proof, ‘I, Marcel Lefebvre’...as if they do not know who I am! I must sign my name to say I am obedient!”
There is a suspicious deviation from this formal obedience given to us by Our Lord in the obedience of the Conciliar Church today. It is rather a material obedience, a servile obedience, a political obedience being demanded by the authorities of the Conciliar Church. Yet when they are confronted about this, they always say that we don’t understand the true council or the true spirit of the reforms.
To be a religious today, and we purposely avoid saying “traditional religious” because there is only one kind of religious, since there is only one model of religious, Our Lord Jesus Christ–to be a religious today practically requires a heroic act of faith and an unshakable will to step into the long procession of saints who were religious and who suffered in the most faithful imitation of the sufferings of Christ that is humanly possible. Archbishop Lefebvre walked in this procession before us. To have the heroic faith of these great saints is something he constantly encouraged in our religious houses. The study of the faith according to the lives of the saints especially of the Middle Ages, which was the Archbishop’s favorite era of Church history, to study the faith according to the doctrine of the popes who fought against modern errors, to study the faith according to the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, is the Archbishop’s program of perseverance, lest we follow our feelings and emotions before the doctrine of the faith. This traditional study of the faith is absolutely in opposition to the modernist concept of the faith which has emptied the monasteries and convents of today.
In the French Seminary in Rome, the Archbishop received an extraordinary formation in matters of the faith. His professor was Fr. Le Floch, famous for his emphasis placed on the teachings and warnings of the anti-modernist popes such as Pope St. Pius X. Looking back now we can easily see that this exceptional formation was a precursor for our exceptional times today. To be a religious today is to recognize this context of exception, especially in matters of the faith.
The sermon at Lille would turn Ecône not only into the citadel of tradition but also into a target.
“Give us back the Mass, give us back the Mass of the saints, give us back the catechism, give us back the Faith...!” The sermon was the shot heard around the world, now we could say it out loud: we have had enough of this crisis.
One day, the Archbishop’s sister who had become a Carmelite complained that she was troubled by doubts about the faith. She was reluctant to reveal this to anyone, but mentioned it to her brother Marcel. His answer was strong: “How can anyone reject the faith, when everything speaks to us of God?” and he continued to expound on this thought. She remembers having left the parlor completely transformed. (From “My Brother Archbishop Marcel” by Mother Marie-Christiane Lefebvre)
Fidelity is akin to simplicity, infidelity is akin to duplicity. How can we be true and trustful sons of God if our attitude is false and two-faced? How can there be an atmosphere of trust if promises made are not kept! It is high time for everyone to examine himself concerning this beautiful virtue of fidelity which earns for us the trust of our neighbor and above all, the trust of God. (Adapted from Lettres Pastorales et Ecrits)
How often he would invoke Our Lady in ending his sermon... we knew it was almost over! But he would most frequently invoke the Virgin most Faithful, Virgo Fidelis. Her example, her faith: “Blessed art thou because thou hast believed”; he would recapitulate and summarize his entire sermon in Our Lady.
Integrity
There is integrity as well, the structural integrity necessary for every work of reconstruction. The religious life is built on 2,000- year-old foundations, it has been a rebuilding upon ruins, but the foundations are intact and will support the restored edifice.
In terms of integrity, the Archbishop has given us the example of religious life, which is not a veneer of superficial externals, but strengthened beneath its outward observances by living foundations. Traditional religious have embraced a divine way of life. The entire being of religious is formed through the study of Church history, fluency in the Latin language, exclusive use of the Latin Liturgy which includes the traditional eight canonical hours of the Breviary, and the traditional Latin Mass, which occupies the first place in our religious life. The religious of tradition, including those who will not become priests, pursue the study of Thomistic theology and philosophy as well as the anti-modernist teachings of the popes as a way to face the present crisis. These teachings are not exclusively destined for intellectuals. Our brothers who milk the cows and shear the sheep are the most enthusiastic students of St. Thomas. Religious life as envisioned by the Archbishop wants the formation of the whole man; body and soul together comprise a human being, and both parts work together in joyous harmony to glorify God. Human nature is a “balance of imbalances,” heavier on the side of the soul, as the earth which spins on a tilted axis. The compassionate and sympathetic knowledge of human nature is where the Archbishop has truly handed on what he received in his own religious formation.
The religious who can work with his own hands and pray and think with his mind is the true religious. To be able to both think and work according to the faith is what the traditional religious formation aims to produce. The Archbishop was photographed in Africa with the only car in the region and with his two legs extending out from beneath the car–he was also the mechanic! He raised the funds to import some of the first printing presses in his mission diocese. He blessed them as well, taking special interest in their operation, and thanks to them we have the very words I am reading to you today!
This spirit of integrity is confronted with violent opposition in the modern Church. To follow the outspoken teachings of the anti-modernist popes, to follow St. Thomas Aquinas, to uphold the traditional liturgy has a price: we are called fascists, “integrists,” dissidents, rebels and the like. It was suggested by Rome that since we love Latin so much why not just say the New Mass in Latin and the new breviary in Latin, or confer the new sacraments in Latin? The Archbishop repeatedly said that it is not a question of language, the Conciliar Church has given us a new religion.
The traditional teaching on religious life is upheld and maintained in the Archbishop’s directives. Beyond the outward signs of traditional life, “for which we are at odds with the conciliar church” as he mentioned in his first letter to seminarians about the boldness in wearing the pre-Vatican II cassock. “The habit maketh not the monk,” but the integrity of the religious life indeed includes such elements as the uninterrupted wearing of the traditional habit never removed or exchanged for civilian dress. The religious uniform does indeed affect the faithful, as an encouragement to always wear their uniform of religious modesty regardless of place or season. This is the famous “sermon” of St. Francis of Assisi; to be visible in public as uniformed religious is an effective preaching without words, especially in non-Catholic countries such as our own.
For all the “oldness” of our battle for tradition, this is definitely something very new in America: to never remove the religious habit, wearing it in public, no matter where we are.
I mentioned the knowledge of human nature. Integrity is the solid sound when struck in the manliness of the traditional religious men’s communities and in true feminine virtues in the convents of religious women. The scandals of the modern clergy always point to moral decadence. Even our ultra-liberal modern society will not tolerate unworthy religious or clergy. The Church of today, as the religious life of today, will never be rebuilt by effeminate men or emasculated women. The saints were holiest in the heroic practice of the virtues according to their proper gender. Our founders, in encouraging both priests and brothers as to the dignity of manual labor, reminded us that the hands our Our Saviour were calloused. Artists have been wrongfully criticized for portraying Our Lord as being strong and physically fit.
Integrity also, in the unmitigated observance of the religious rule. The time-proven austerities and penances of 2,000 years of religious history are maintained as the secondary means to promote fervor and holiness as read in the lives of the saints who were founders of the great religious orders.
The religious life is at times heroic; the faith inspires us to heroic desires and sustains us in heroic action. We all wonder what it was like to live with the great saints, to live in the midst of Jesus and the Apostles, to see miracles with our own eyes. The truth is, the great saints do have a successor today, and we have all seen the miracles: he is the Archbishop.
Continuity
Continuity also–our life is not our own, it is greater than we are in the sense of a participation in something greater. Our works are the works of God, greater also than what we can do. St. Paul speaks of our role as only part of what is being done. Since we are concerned with the work of God, the causes as well as the effects are eternal. Continuity is the part of God in our vocation; his grace precedes us and follows us. In a certain sense, Religious live a life received, faithfully passed on, a torch of tradition handed forward, a flame of light, that part of our life which is common to all the saints from all the ages of the Church. The spirit of continuity dusts off the books of the past and presents them to us as timeless. This spirit has been given to us thanks to the Archbishop who has made the magisterial teaching of twenty centuries actuality. He has enabled us to live the same religious life and religious spirit with no interruption from the time of the Apostles. The Archbishop has been our bridge of continuity. But all bridges work in both directions: the spiritual bridge is the same. If the Archbishop has linked us to our rightful heritage of the past, he is also our bridge to the future. Religious and clergy whom we meet always say the same thing: they were taught that the Church really began to live at Vatican II. Two thousand years of tradition disappeared at the great renewal, the new Pentecost of the Council. The moments of difficulty in Catholic history have been exaggerated to modern clergy and the line of continuity has not been portrayed as unbroken.
The lives of the saints are no longer believed to be timeless models; their heritage has been fossilized. The Church fathers are misquoted out of context, making them the first modernists. Psychology has replaced asceticism: we are told that we are very different from our ancestors, and their example is not able to be lived today, it is either too hard or too out-dated, tradition is a dead letter, we have a different mentality today...
The Archbishop has cried out to the Church to let us have our faith back! To give us back the tradition of the saints. He called the Latin Liturgy “the Mass of all time.” The modernists call it the old liturgy as if it were a relic or an antique. And yet Tradition is mostly young families and young vocations. People exclaim to us that we are too young to be monks!
The Archbishop has opened the doors to the world of the past and shown by his own example that the Faith cannot change with the times, the times must change according to the precepts of the Faith. There is a fixed point, an absolute norm. The immutability of God shines forth in all his works! He also said that the majority does not make the Truth but Truth makes the majority, even if this majority were reduced to a remnant.
Although the monasteries and convents established with the encouragement and blessing of the Archbishop are all overflowing with vocations, they remain small by pre-Vatican II standards. We have seen the analysis graphs of Catholic statistics, showing the growth of Catholic numbers before the Council, then the sharp drop afterwards. The situation is worse than we think. The increase in vocations should have continued since it is the nature of the Church to increase. There should be today a new generation in every field of apostolate: more Catholic schools with new and larger generations of teaching nuns and brothers, there should be more Catholic hospitals with more nursing nuns and Catholic doctors and chaplains, there should be more monasteries and convents of contemplative religious. Catholic numbers should be greater across the board than before the Council. Instead we have almost nothing. It is the “crisis” we are accused of inventing!
The Virtue of Religion: Conversion
If there is one word that sums up the life and teaching of the Archbishop, it would be: Conversion. The saints tell us that something is the will of God when there is conversion. It is the sign of all signs that God is blessing what we do. Conversion is the permanent preoccupation of the missionary. The conversion of his mission people, the conversion of souls, the conversion of sinners, the conversion of unbelievers. In our own case, who has not come to the traditional practice of the faith without experiencing some kind of conversion. Changes have had to be accepted, sacrifices have had to be made, we have had to convert back to the true faith of the Church. Each and every one of us is a convert in this sense. We are surprised by the circumstances that have led us back to the integrity of our Catholic religion; sometimes it has been an inexplicable series of events. It is a sign. It is the sign. Only God could do what has happened to us. God has been at work in our lives. God has willed this change and has supported it with his grace. The missionary work of the Archbishop has been marked by all these signs. The present numbers of Catholics having returned to the true faith is staggering. The work of this great missionary keeps producing fruits today long after his death. We are his final converts. And for the first time in decades the religious ideal has been put forth as the universal model: that is, for everyone. For the first time in many decades, parents would encourage their children to consider the priesthood or the religious life before deciding their vocation. Family portraits showing children in the cassock or the traditional religious habit are the testimony of the successful missionary work of the Archbishop.
The practical application of conversion would be part of one of the Archbishop’s favorite subjects, the virtue of religion. He spoke of this virtue from first-hand experience. He knew all too keenly that the religious life is also a target. Being involved both in the creation as well as in the guidance of numerous religious communities, he knew of the problems encountered through contacts with the modern world. The virtue of religion was a favorite theme of the Archbishop’s sermons whenever he visited religious houses. The vocation is a return to God for all he has done for us. He considered the study of this virtue to be the antidote to the breakdown of religion today.
The empty convents, the empty monasteries, the empty schools where teaching religious taught every grade, the hospitals where nursing religious once cared for the sick, this crisis is worldwide, a great battle has been waged and the enemy has prevailed. “The knock-out blow of Satan has been to cause disobedience in the name of obedience.” Religious today are without habits, disoriented, ecologists, humanitarians, social workers, non-conformists, “disfunctionaries” without any real mission. The Archbishop cried out with indignation before this spectacle of religious disintegration:
What is a religious, what is a religious man or woman, whether a religious brother, monk or a nun? These are persons who offer their lives as victims with the Victim who offers Himself on the altar. This is what a religious man or woman is and nothing else. This is the founddational principle of the entire religious life. If there is no more Victim upon the altar, if there is no more sacrifice upon the altar, then there is no more reason to be a religious. It is no surprise if there are no more! This is very important to understand. (From A Bishop Speaks)
The traditional sense of religion tells us that life is a spiritual combat. A life of self-sacrifice, of self-renunciation, the spirit of victimhood is the normal way of the saints because it was the way Our Lord chose to redeem us. No one wants to be a victim any longer if there is no longer any Victim on the altar. This is the essence of the religious life: to live the holy sacrifice of the Mass. To be a living Mass is precisely what a religious is. The Mass is the driving force of the religious. Without its source religious life quickly disappears. It is less necessary to probe into the internal forum of the clergy and to analyze the modern rites of Mass than it is to see and to judge the fruits. Religious life, although not a sacrament in itself, is nevertheless born of the sacramental grace which is the essential effect of the Mass. True religious have disappeared where the source of religion, the true Mass which is the sacrifice of the Cross, has disappeared.
Operation Survival
Thanks to the Archbishop, thanks to the return of the traditional religious ideal, we are reminded that there must be a truthful way of looking at the forces of irreligion, what we call “the spirit of the world.”
This analogy of rescue is the essence of what the Archbishop called “Operation Survival.”
It was first used at the consecration of the four bishops in 1988. To henceforth have the means to survive, to continue, but to continue what?
Through sermons, retreat conferences, even debates–in 40 years since the close of the Council, the world has forgotten what the truth sounds like, until now. This is the present tense of the ongoing work of the Archbishop! One aspect of Operation Survival is the preaching of the religious ideal as the most effective means to save souls. Among the truths that we have not heard in many years is that our Catholic faith is a war. We also hear of the need to convert. And conversion is a spiritual battle. Spiritual combat is the daily living out of the religious ideal. The Archbishop used the word “combat” before any other whenever he described his work, and therefore his own vocation.
In visiting the monastery a preacher of the Exercises of St. Ignatius stated that “this is what we try to reproduce in the five days of retreat: to put our retreatants into a monastery, where the noisy world is left outside and the things of the soul can be put back in the first place. God is first served. Then when the retreatants return home, the corrective restoration spreads to others.”
The fruits of the traditional apostolate bear the signature of the same archbishop, and it is a living signature: Men and women who have sacrificed everything in order to raise truly Catholic families, are now giving their children to God, young men and young ladies anxious to answer the call to the religious life. These are only a few of the miracles that were not supposed to happen in our day.
Shortly before the Archbishop died, I explained to him the many difficulties I was encountering in establishing a monastery still in its beginning stages.
He shared with me what I consider to be his secret to success. He told me it was time to do the impossible. The impossible has to be done in order to keep going. The impossible has to be done to establish our monastery. Crosses are meant to be carried. Obstacles must be overcome. I am sure this advice was not limited to only one monastery and to only one founder...!
A great religious, a great missionary, a great archbishop has encouraged the revival of the religious orders, especially the contemplative and semi-contemplative orders. As a missionary he knew the last end of all active apostolate, the ultimate purpose for setting up Catholic missions and Mass centers, the final reason for Catholic schools and retreat houses, and it was certainly part of the great genius of this man whom we consider a saint. The intensity of the active life and the zeal for the salvation of souls find their fervor in the realization of the final purpose of all holy apostolates, and it comes as no surprise that a contemplative saint was named patroness of the missions. St. Therese of the Child Jesus covered vast distances on her knees in prayer, motionless in the chapel yet spiritually accompanying the travels of the most zealous missionaries.
When will there be enough priests, enough chapels, enough schools? When will the missionary know his work has achieved its end? The end of all missionary activity is to bring souls to God. That they may begin to contemplate his glory while still on the earth, that they may possess God in their souls, that they may live united to God through the effects of grace, that a society built upon the divine order be restored–this is the crowning achievement of missionaries. The contemplative life is nothing else. Where the missionary work has ended, the contemplative life has begun. The contemplation of God is the Great End, it is the beginning of heaven.
It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be introduced to the religious life through the influence of Archbishop Lefebvre in 1979, and to be ordained a priest by him in 1986. When I asked him what I should do in the face of all the confusion surrounding each and every one of us today, he smiled and said, “You are a monk!” “Be what you are. Stay what you are. Be a monk for the glory of the Church. It is your duty to continue as you are, as a contemplative religious.”
These words are not limited to only one personal case. He repeated them to every religious who has had to “jump the wall” in order to escape the religious “disorder,” fleeing to sanity, to the perennial religious life. He encouraged the re-founding of many religious orders, including Carmelites, Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines, teaching orders, nursing orders, missionary orders, all of them wearing their traditional habits like banners, all of them flourishing today. He also created the ideal complement to his new order of religious-minded priests with the establishment of the religious Sisters and the Brothers of the Society of St. Pius X, whose extraordinary history is yet one more miracle of the Archbishop’s genius, sanctified by the Providence of God. By borrowing from the treasury of the ideals of the great religious orders, under the patronage of the greatest saints who were also religious, they are living the very essence of the religious life beneath the guiding light and spirit of the great rules of contemplative and missionary religious life.
His own words still resound in my ears “Without monasteries, without religious souls consecrated to prayer and to the service of God, the Church will never recover from the present crisis.” These words are the mission statement of our monastery. These words are the mission statement of every monastery and convent faithful to tradition today. May each of these houses be a living thank-you of gratitude to our great Archbishop.
Thank you for your attention and for your encouragement.
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