Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)

FIRST VESPERS

Quote:The Prophet is speaking to a wicked king who refused to accept a miraculous proof of God’s merciful protection over Jerusalem; and he makes this an opportunity for announcing to Juda the great portent which we are celebrating today: A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. And when was it that God fulfilled the prophecy? It was in an age when mankind seemed to have reached the highest pitch of wickedness, and when idolatry and immorality reigned throughout the whole world. The fullness of time came, and the tradition, which had found its way into every country, that a Virgin should bring forth a son—was exciting much interest. This is the day on which the Mystery was accomplished; let us adore the power of God and the fidelity wherewith he fulfills his promises. The author of the laws of nature suspends them; he acts independently of them—Virginity and Maternity are united in one and the same creature, for the Child that is to be born is God. A Virgin could not bring forth other than God himself: the Son of Mary is, therefore, called Emmanuel, that is, God with us.

Let us adore this God, the Creator of all things visible and invisible, who thus humbles himself. Henceforth, he will have every tongue confess, not only his divinity, but also his Human Nature, which he has assumed in order that he might redeem us. From this day forward, he is truly the Son of Man. He will remain nine months in his Mother’s womb, as other children. Like them, he will, after his birth, be fed on milk and honey. He will sanctify all stages of human life, from infancy to perfect manhood, for he is the New Man, who has come down from heaven that he might restore the Old. Without losing aught of his Divinity, he shares in our weak finite being, that he may make us partakers of the divine nature.

Quote:By these last words of thine, O Mary! our happiness is secured. Thou consentest to the desire of Heaven, and thy consent brings us our Savior. O Virgin-Mother! Blessed among women! we unite our thanks with the homage that is paid thee by the Angels. By thee is our ruin repaired; in thee is our nature restored; for thou hast wrought the victory of man over Satan!—St. Bernard, in one of his Homilies on this Gospel thus speaks: “Rejoice, O thou our father Adam! but thou, O mother Eve, still more rejoice! You were our Parents, but you were also our destroyers; and what is worse, you had wrought our destruction before you gave us birth. Both of you must be consoled in such a Daughter as this: but thou, O Eve, who wast the first cause of our misfortune, and whose humiliation has descended upon all women, thou hast a special reason to rejoice in Mary. For the time is now come when the humiliation is taken away, neither can man any longer complain against the woman, as of old, when he foolishly sought to excuse himself, and cruelly put all the blame on her, saying: The woman, whom thou gavest me, gave me of the Tree, and I did eat. Go, Eve, to Mary; go, Mother, to thy Daughter; let thy Daughter take thy part, and free thee from thy disgrace, and reconcile thee to her father: for if man fell by a woman, he is raised up by a woman.

“What is this thou sayest, Adam? The woman, whom thou gavest me, gave me of the Tree, and I did eat? These are wicked words; far from effacing thy fault, they aggravate it. But divine Wisdom conquered thy wickedness by finding in the treasury of his own inexhaustible mercy a motive for pardon, which he had in vain sought to elicit by questioning thee. In place of the woman, of whom thou complainest, he gives thee another: Eve was foolish, Mary is Wise; Eve was proud, Mary is humble; Eve gave thee of the tree of death, Mary will give thee of the Tree of life; Eve offered thee a bitter and poisoned fruit, Mary will give thee the sweet Fruit she herself is to bring forth, the Fruit of everlasting life. Change, then, thy wicked excuse into an act of thanksgiving, and say: The Woman, whom thou hast given me, O Lord, hath given me of the Tree of Life, and I have eaten thereof; and it is sweeter than honey to my mouth, for by it thou hast given me life.” (St Bernard, Homil. II. Super Missus est.)

Quote:

PREFACE

by Dr. Peter Chojnowski

Those who remain attached to the Catholic Faith as articulated by all the great dogmatic Councils of the Church are greatly indebted to His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais for this article, published just last summer in the French Dominican publication Le Sel de la Terre and just translated into English.

The fight we are in for Catholic Tradition is not a fight over ceremonies and rituals, which some happen to like and others happen not to like. The Sacred Rites of the Church are “sacred” precisely because they express and apply to the concrete lives of the Faithful, the truths and grace which even God the Son did not “make up,” but were, rather, revealed to Him by His Father in Heaven.

This article, which compares the theology of Josef Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) to that of the traditional theology of the Church as articulated by the Popes, the Fathers, and the Doctors, is truly a comprehensive study for all those interested in the doctrinal issues now being discussed behind closed doors.

Since the Conciliar Church has decided to accept the personal theology of each new pope as its current interpretation of the fundamentals of the Faith, it is absolutely essential for real Catholics to understand the Modernist Revolution in its current stage.

Please spread this article far and wide. The text is long, however, the reader should make it to the end in order to understand how the New Theology attempts to transform the most fundamental doctrines of the faith.

After reading this fascinating essay, anyone who thought that “reconciliation” between Catholic Tradition and Vatican II theology is right around the corner will have to think again!

January 2010

Taken from The Recusant - Issue 43 [September/October 2017]

We can only apologise for a curious set of circumstances which prevented us from bringing this extraordinary account to the attention of a wider audience sooner. Not a great deal has changed since, except perhaps the episcopal consecration of Fr. Zendejas.

Taken from The Recusant - Issue 41 [May/June 2017]: Some minor adjustments to he English were necessary, but as far as possible we have tried to keep the original ‘flavor’. God bless Fr. Ruiz…

Quote:“Our Fraternity absolutely rejects sharing these reasonings. We want to remain attached to Rome, to Saint Peter’s Successor; even though we reject his liberalism because of the Fidelity to their Predecessors. We are not afraid today to say it respectfully but firmly, as Saint Paul did in front of Saint Peter.

That is why, far from rejecting the prayers for the Pope, the more we increase our prayers and we plead the Holy Spirit to illuminate him and strengthen him in the support and defense of the Faith.

In consequence, it cannot be tolerated that the members, priests, brothers, sisters, oblates of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (F.S.S.P.X.) reject praying for the Pope and assert that all the masses of the Novus Ordo are invalid”.

Quote: “I wanted to write this article so that everybody knows, including the parishioners, what is the position of the Fraternity. So the parishioners know that if one of our priests preaches that there is no Pope, he does not preach in accordance to what the Fraternity thinks”.

Quote:“I have always put on guard the parishioners about the vacancy of the Seat of Peter, for instance. Then they say, if the Mass is good, then we can go to Mass. Of course there is the Mass. This is a good thing; although one has to consider that there is also the preaching, there is also the environment, the conversations, before and after, the contacts. All of which makes one gently and gradually changes ones thought. All this is then a real danger and that is why in a general way, I estimate that all this forms one whole. One does not only go to Mass, in fact, one attends the whole environment”.

Quote:“It is licit to the parishioners to go to all traditional Masses (also celebrated “non una cum”) because it is the Minister who answers to God about his decisions, meanwhile the parishioners must only answer if they have observed the Third Commandment: “Sanctify the Feasts”.”

Quote:“If I went to discuss to Rome, it was because I wanted to prove, if we could make an agreement with the ecclesiastical authorities, while at the same time, looking forward to sheltering ourselves from its liberalism and protecting Holy Tradition. But the strength of the facts has forced me to confirm that no agreement could be made at all, which could give us both, all the guarantee, and at the same time the conviction that Rome would sincerely attend to the preservation of the Holy Tradition.” Monsignor Lefebvre “Fideliter” magazine No. 68, 1988.

Quote:“Our true parishioners, those who have truly understood the problem and who have helped us to continue the straight and steady line of Holy Tradition and the Faith, feared beforehand the meetings for possible agreement that I had in Rome. They told me it was indeed dangerous and that I wasted my time on it. Of course, I had waited until the last moment to see if Rome could show a little honesty. I can not be blamed for not having done everything I could. But now, however, to those who come to tell me: ‘You come to an understanding with Rome,’ I think I can tell them with certainty that I went farther than what I should have gone.” ‘Fideliter’ magazine No. 79, 1991.

Quote:“If you do not accept the Doctrine of your Predecessors, it is useless to talk. As long as you do not accept to reform the Council taking into account the Doctrine of the Popes, who have preceded you, there is no possible dialogue, it is useless.” (‘Fideliter’ No. 66 Nov. 1988).

Quote:“When they affirm that they have not given up anything, it is false. They have given up the possibility of contradicting Rome. They cannot say anything now. They must remain silent because of the favors they have received, and it is now impossible for them to denounce the errors of the conciliar church. Very slowly they accept, even if it were only the profession of faith that Cardinal Ratzinger has imposed on them ... From the point of view of ideas. They turn very gently and end up admitting the false ideas of the Council Vatican II. This is because Rome has granted them some favors for Tradition. This is a very dangerous situation.”

Quote:“It is then a strict duty for every Priest who wishes to remain a Catholic one, to separate himself from this conciliar church, as long as it has not returned to the Holy Tradition of the Magisterium of the Church and of the Catholic Faith.”

Quote: “The faithful that reads the history of the church with a sincere heart, will see the holiness of the Church shine, not only in the essential sanctity of its invisible head, Jesus Christ, the sanctity of the sacraments, of the doctrine, of religious institutions, of a great number of its members, but also of an abundance of celestial gifts, of sacred charisms, of prophesies, and”–pay attention here—“and miracles that Our Lord, denying them to other religions, makes shine on the face of the earth, this gift of holiness endowed exclusively on His one and only Church.”

Downloadable PDF version: St. John Eudes - The Priest: His Dignity and Obligations

Reposted here from The Catacombs archives: 


Dear friends, 

I am always loathe to reference sedevacantist sources. However, it has long been the custom here on The Catacombs that if an article exposes or speaks the truth, it shouldn't be ignored just because of who the author is/was [e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas referencing Aristotle]. With this in mind, we repost the following article, adapted to filter out the sedevacantist references. Please keep in mind that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais' study on the 'Hermeneutics' of Joseph Ratzinger highlight many of the points made below though not [to my memory] this particular example.

Quote:Nor does Paul VI here offer to introduce an “ordinary” form of Mass, which has its complement in the “extraordinary” form of the St. Pius V Missal — that’s a distinction that Benedict XVI simply made up in order to “synthesize”, in somewhat Hegelian fashion, the two contradictory ideas that the New Mass replaced the Missal of St. Pius V and that there can be only one Roman rite of Mass at a time. 

…It is no stretch to predict that what will come out of this “co-existence” of the “two forms” of “one and the same rite” will, at the end of the day, result in a total butchering of the 1962 Missal, so that, eventually, Benedict XVI can stop the nonsense of “two forms” of “one rite” and simply synthesize them together (here comes Hegel again), and the result will probably be a New Mass with a bit of Latin and a little more incense, or some sort of a hybrid missal like the one that was already in use in 1965. (“‘One and the Same Rite’?”, Novus Ordo Watch, Oct. 12, 2007)

Quote:Pope Benedict saw his role as that of a reconciler. The adherents of Tradition and the adherents of the progressivist wing [of the Church] both equally hold the view that the Second Vatican Council and the reform of the Mass constitute a genuine rupture with Tradition. It is true that in terms of doctrine the notion of [the Mass as] sacrifice was still being upheld, but in many cases this was no longer true in practice: We now celebrate a meal. Pope Benedict tried to transcend any such confrontation by opting for a hermeneutic of continuity, saying: The old and the new Ordo [=order of Mass] are two different forms of the same rite. That was a bold thesis for anyone who uses his eyes and ears. I view it as a diplomatic formula [which Benedict advanced] to help heal the obvious rupture. Based on this, Pope Benedict then expressed his hope that the old and the new Ordo would be able to influence each other, perhaps in order to arrive at a synthesis of old and new Ordo in accordance with the Hegelian model of dialectics. However, this would require the old Ordo to be celebrated in a great many places — otherwise there could hardly be a fruitful exchange concerning it. Moreover, one would have to accept that the old [rite of] worship cannot change — it would surely then have to be the Novus [=new] Ordo which gradually moves towards the sacredness of tradition so that the commonality of both forms can be recognized. (“‘Liturgie heißt: Gott agiert'”, Die Tagespost, June 2, 2017. Translation by Novus Ordo Watch.)

Taken from The Recusant - Issue 39 January 2016

In Spanish but vividly portrayed: