The
Richness of Tradition
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
The traditional
liturgical calendar is resplendent with the richness of the authentic
patrimony of Holy Mother Church. One of the signs of the inauthentic
and radical nature of the liturgical revolution of the past forty years
has been the "simplification" of the liturgical calendar by
the removal of saints about whom "little" is known "for
certain." Catholics who assist at the Novus Ordo Missae
are thus deprived of the richness of the Church's tradition, never being
challenged to meditate on the lives of the saints of centuries past
who are still capable of teaching us by their holy example of perfect
love for Our Lord and of interceding for our needs in times quite similar
to those in which they found themselves in the early part of the Church's
history. For example, every single day in the month of August, which
is devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, commemorates at least one
saint in the traditional calendar or marks a great feast of Our Lord
or His Most Blessed Mother. Every single day. What a great opportunity,
therefore, is given to us to celebrate the feast days of tradition and
to receive Holy Communion in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition as we
attempt to imitate the virtues of the saints thus commemorated.
What I would
like to do in this brief reflection is to review some of the
feast days of the last few weeks and of the first two weeks of August,
making a few comments here and there for prayerful reflection. Each
of us should be in the habit of reading about the lives of the saints
on their feast days. Those of us with families should develop the habit
of reading about them aloud to our children, no matter how young they
are, from good Catholic sources such as Dom Prosper Gueranger's The
Liturgical Year. If Dom Prosper Gueranger's magnificent treatment
of the liturgical year was good enough for Louis and Zelie Martin, it
should be good enough for each one of us.
July
26: Saint Anne. Good Saint Anne, as she is called, is the mother
of the Immaculate Conception and the grandmother of the Word Who was
made Flesh in her daughter's virginal and immaculate womb. Saint Anne
was privileged to carry within her own womb the woman who would make
possible the salvation of us all by her perfect fiat at the Annunciation.
She was privileged to hold within her loving arms her Divine Grandson,
thus making her the model not only for good Catholic mothers but also
the model of all Catholic grandmothers. Saint Anne teaches parents to
train their children for eternity. Although Our Lady, who was born some
fifteen years before Our Lord, was conceived without stain of Original
Sin and was unspotted by the stain of actual sin, she still had to learn
from Saint Anne and from her father, Saint Joachim, about the things
of God, starting with the Scriptures. Saint Anne lovingly prepared her
daughter, Mary of Nazareth, to know the Scriptures when she heard them
read in the synagogue and thus to be ready to respond to the Father's
will when she was asked by Saint Gabriel the Archangel to enflesh their
Author by the power of the Holy Ghost. Saint Anne and Saint Joachim
presented Our Lady in the Temple when she was three years of age, giving
her entirely to God. This should inspire those of us with daughters
to do everything we can to foster a simplicity of life that is founded
in a detachment from the things of this world and a love of the things
of eternity so that our daughters will choose to espouse themselves
to Mary's Divine Son, Saint Anne's Grandson, in some traditional community
of religious women.
July
29: Saint Martha: Tradition refers to Saint Martha as the sister
of Saint Mary Magdalene, something that drives contemporary Scripture
scholars more than a little batty. The image of Saint Martha busying
herself about the tasks of hospitality while her sister listened to
Our Lord is considered by the Church to be a simile for for the active
and contemplative branches of the interior life. There are times when
we must attend to the mundane tasks of ordinary living and to see in
the fulfillment of them the path to glorifying God and to sanctifying
our souls. Our work must not cause us anxiety or to think that we can
somehow forgot about prayer as we do the duties that befit our states-in-life.
We must take the path of Saint Martha's sister, Saint Mary Magdalene,
to spend time in prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament and
to the Mother of God as slaves consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.
Although one aspect or another is emphasized in the constitutions of
various religious communities of men and women, those of us in the lay
life are called to base our work in prayer and to offer up our daily
work as a prayer, never neglecting the necessity of formal, structured
mental prayer and to pray the Mass with the priest as we assist at Mass
every day. Saint Martha's belief in the Our Lord as "the Son of
the living God, who art come into the world" led her to trust that
her brother, Saint Lazarus, would be raised from the dead by Him even
though Lazarus had been dead for four days. We must have Saint Martha's
total faith in Our Lord, never presuming our salvation while never despairing
of it as we attempt to work it out in fear and in trembling as members
of His true Church
July 31: Saint
Ignatius of Loyola: The founder of the Society of Jesus formed
a spiritual army to defend the Pope and the Catholic Church during the
attacks of the Protestant Revolt. Forsaking the life of military combat
and the perquisites of the court, Saint Ignatius became a master of
the interior life as well as a general in charge of troops that were
meant to be quite active on the front lines of defending Catholic doctrine
against the various heresies spawned by the different strains of Protestantism.
Not content to do battle for the Church in Europe, Saint Ignatius sent
his priests to do missionary work around the world, careful to form
his priests in a rigorous program of education and spiritual exercises
that would serve the Society of Jesus well until many of its members
became infected with Modernism in the last century. Saint Francis Xavier,
a direct disciple of Saint Ignatius, took the Gospel of Christ to India
and to Japan. The North American Martyrs shed their blood so that the
Social Reign of Christ the King would take root in the northern part
of North America. Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro courageously went about
the business of administering the sacraments to Catholics in Our Lady's
country, Mexico, at a time when the Masonic revolutionaries there were
persecuting Catholics fiercely, crying out "Viva Cristo Rey!"
as the bullets pierced his flesh on November 23, 1927. Although many
of Saint Ignatius's contemporary sons have been in the vanguard of the
liturgical and doctrinal revolutions of the past decades, he has more
than a handful of sons who have remained steadfast in the Faith and
who are actually committed to the Tradition of the Church. Chief among
these one can call to mind the late Father Vincent Miceli, the late
Father Frederick Schell, and Father Raymond Dunn, each of whom suffered
mightily once they made their decision to defend Tradition without compromise
by rejecting entirely all of the novelties of the Second Vatican Council
and thereafter as inimical to the Catholic Faith. We need to invoke
the intercession of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who was so very devoted
to Our Lady, so that his Society will once again be a bulwark of the
Faith to such an extent that one of its sons who is committed to Tradition
might one day help a pope to recover our Catholic past and the sure
path it contains for the salvation and sanctification of souls.
August
1: Saint Peter's Chains: The first Pope, Saint Peter, was hated
by the Jews for his bold and fearless proclamation of the Gospel of
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Acts of the Apostles records
numerous instances of the plots that were hatched against the Apostles
as they set out for the business of trying to convert the whole world
to the Cross of the Divine Redeemer following the descent of the Holy
Ghost upon them (and on our dear Blessed Mother) on Pentecost Sunday.
Believing that the death of the messenger would stop the message, the
Jews were ceaseless in their efforts to track down the Apostles and
the first Catholics who followed them in the infant Church. It was thus
shortly after the martyrdom of Saint James the Greater, the brother
of Saint John the Evangelist, that Saint Peter was arrested by King
Herod Agrippa with the intention of doing unto him what had been done
to Saint James. As Saint Peter still had work to do in the vineyard
of the Divine Master he had denied three times during His Passion, angels
came to break the chains that had bound him in prison. This actually
happened. It is also symbolic, however, of the chains of sin and selfishness
that tie us down so much in this vale of tears and can be broken only
with the strength Our Lord gives us through the sacraments, aided in
no small measure by Our Lady's maternal intercession and by the efforts
of our angels to keep us truly free as baptized and confirmed members
of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and only
slavery and misery. In a special way, we must pray that the particular
chains of the regime of novelty that have bound the recent popes, including
Pope John Paul II, will be broken by angelic forces so that the pope
and his bishops will be truly free to recover the sure path of salvation
and sanctification that is provided only by Tradition.
August
2: Saint Alphonsus de Liguori: The founder of the Congregation
of the Most Holy Redeemer, the Redemptorist Fathers, Saint Alphonsus
de Liguori was one of the longest-lived saints in the history of the
Church, dying in his ninety-first year of life in the year 1787. Saint
Alphonsus, a lawyer, laid down his sword at the age of twenty-seven,
offering it on a altar consecrated to Our Lady. The Patron of Moral
Theologians, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori wrote eloquently on many topics,
including Purgatory, but was especially poignant in his total and unmatched
love for Our Lady. His Redemptorist sons became noted for their preaching
of sound and orthodox parish missions before the onslaught of the Modernist
infection. He is to be invoked particularly in our own day, a time in
which there is such confusion and heresy in the field of moral theology
and such denigration of total devotion to the Mother of God.
August
4: Saint Dominic: Born Dominic de Guzman, the founder of the
Order of Preachers lived to be only fifty-one years of age. His mother,
Blessed Jane of Aza, gave three sons, including himself to the Church
as priests. Dedicated to the preaching of the truths of the Faith in
a systematic way, Saint Dominic relied tenderly upon Our Lady, who gave
him the Rosary while he was in Toulouse, France. He fought with valor
against the Albigensian heretics, bringing back thousands of them into
the Church. His work, along with that of the mendicant friar who Tradition
tells us that he had a close and collaborative friendship, Saint Francis
of Assisi, helped to bring about the flowering of the apogee of Christendom
in the Thirteenth Century. Within a short period of time, the Dominican
Fathers had produced Saint Albert the Great and his student, the Angelic
Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Two of the great saints of the Americans,
Saint Rose of Lima and Saint Martin de Porres, were Dominicans. Saint
Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican, shows us that there are great saints and
learned priests who take the wrong sides in the midst of controversies:
Saint Vincent followed an anti-pope for a time during the Great Western
Schism, whose end he helped to effect. As is the case with most of the
other, older religious communities of men and women, the Dominicans
have suffered the results of the infections of Modernism, manifested
as they have been in recent decades under the mask of conciliarism.
A devotion to Saint Dominic, however, and a reliance on the holy instrument,
the Rosary, given to him by Our Lady will help us in our own days, full
of the same sorts of errors that plagued the Church nearly eight hundred
years ago.
August
5: Our Lady of the Snows: Snow in Rome? Well, yes, it snowed
in Rome on the night of August 4, 355. More precisely, the snows fell
on Esquiline Hill in Rome. The outline of the great basilica that was
to be built in honor of Our Lady, which is called today the Basilica
of Saint Mary Major, was to be found in the snows on Esquiline Hill.
In this great basilica, where a Solemn High Pontifical Mass was offered
in the Traditional Roman Rite on May 24, 2003, can be found the crib
in which the Newborn Christ-Child was placed upon His birth in Bethlehem,
the body of Saint Jerome and the relics of Saint Matthias. The ceiling
of its nave is covered with the first gold that was brought back by
the Spaniards from the Americas. This great feast reminds us that it
is God's will for us to give public honor to His Most Blessed Mother,
who has been sent to us by Him on numerous occasions through the centuries
to teach us that there is no other path to Heaven except that which
runs through her Immaculate Heart.
August
6: The Feast of the Transfiguration: The Gospel of the Transfiguration
is read twice a year. The first time is on the Second Sunday in Lent.
The second time is on this great feast, which falls this year on the
First Friday in August. Our Lord took three of His Apostles, Saints
Peter, James and John, up to the top of Mount Tabor, where He was transfigured
before them in glory, showing them the same glory He had from all eternity
with the Father, Who said, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am
well pleased. Hear ye Him." Appearing with Our Lord were Moses
and Elias. The three Apostles were permitted to experience the image
of Our Lord's transfiguration in order to provide them with a bit of
consolation during His Passion and Death, that they might call to mind
the vision of His radiant glory as all appeared in human terms to be
have been lost with His Death on the wood of the Holy Cross. It is that
very same transfigured glory that Our Lord showed forth as He manifested
His Easter Victory over sin and death in the Resurrection. And it is
no accident that Our Lord took the same three Apostles with Him as He
suffered His Agony in the Garden of Gethsamane. Just as Saints Peter,
James and John fell down on the ground when they saw the image of Our
Lord's transfigured glory on Mount Tabor, so would they fall fast asleep
as the Divine Master demonstrated the depths of the horror afflicting
His soul as He sweated droplets of His Most Precious Blood while contemplating
all of the sins of all men until the end of time that would cause Him
to undergo His fearful Passion and Death. This incomparable feast day
reminds us that Our Lord wants us to remember that there an empty tomb
in Jerusalem because He got up and walked out of it, promising us that
our own bodies will be transfigured in glory at the end of time if our
souls persevere in states of sanctifying grace until the point of our
dying breaths. And Our Lord wants us to remember that He will provide
us a bit of consolation every now and then as we walk the rocky road
that leads to the narrow gate of Life. We must not look for the consolation.
However, He will send us a bit of consolation in order to encourage
us as we keep our hands on the plough in order to furrow the ground
so as to bring forth a rich harvest of souls for the Catholic Church.
Our daily crosses are ever with us. They are the means of our sanctification
and salvation, given freely to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart. If some
bit of transfiguring joy comes our way now and then, thank God for it,
but be ever ready to look at the Cross, without which it is impossible
to know the glory of an unending Easter Sunday of joy in Paradise.
August
9: Saint John Marie Vianney: The Cure of Ars was proclaimed
by Pope Pius XI to be the patron of all diocesan (secular) priests.
What a patron! Saint John Marie Vianney, who was born in 1786, three
years before the onset of the French Revolution, persevered in his priestly
studies despite the difficulties he experienced in completing them.
He knew that it was God's will to be a priest, to minister to the French
people in the aftermath of a revolution that had shed so much blood
and had desecrated the altars of God as it liquidated many Catholic
clerics and lay people. He was ordained, in 1815, at the age of twenty-nine,
which is relatively late for a diocesan priest. After a brief time in
another village, Saint John Marie Vianney arrived in the farm village
of Ars in 1818, where he served for forty-one years until his death
at the age of seventy-three, in 1859. Dedicated to the sanctification
and salvation of the souls of the flock that had been entrusted to his
pastoral care unto eternity, Saint John Marie Vianney was unstinting
from the pulpit in his firm condemnation of the evils of French popular
culture. He spoke graphically about the horror of sin and the reality
of Hell. Far from from discouraging his parishioners, Father Vianney
inspired them to scale the heights of personal sanctity. In a day when
there was no real means of mass communication, word of his simple eloquence
in behalf of the Cross of the Divine Redeemer and devotion to the Mother
of God spread far and wide. Over 20,000 people a year would make their
way to Ars to assist at Mass offered by Father Vianney, who spent between
twelve and eighteen hours every day in the confessional to offer the
healing balm of Divine Mercy to the most hardened of sinners. Most of
his "free" time was spent before the Blessed Sacrament in
prayer. The fact that he lived to be seventy-three with so little sleep
and so much arduous work in behalf of souls is a testament to the power
of God's grace and Our Lady's maternal intercession. Saint John Marie
Vianney helped to popularize the cult of Saint Philomena, whose feast
is August 11, two days after his own. Saint John Marie Vianney eschewed
comfort and the privileges that many priests sought in the clerical
state. He lived a life of holy poverty and simplicity. His sermons still
resonate with Catholic truth that can turn around a life or two 145
years after his death. His spirit is exhibited by so many priests that
we are privileged to know. Father Patrick Perez. Father Lawrence Smith.
Father Stephen Zigrang. Father Phil Wolfe, a priest of the Priestly
Fraternity of Saint Peter, whom we have heard preach, "I am not
here to make you feel good. I am here to make you be
good." Father Wolfe spends many hours each day in the confessional.
A diocesan pastor in Indiana, Father Timothy Alkire, is known to spend
many hours in the confessional each week. Father Robert Mason, the pastor
of Our Lady of Lourdes in Massapequa Park, New York, will hear a confession
at any time of the day or night without regard to his personal convenience.
The examples could go on and on and on, including priests who would
not profit from being mentioned by me on this website. Saint John Marie
Vianney reminds all diocesan priests that they are ordained to be bothered,
that their schedules revolve around being an alter Christus,
that there is never a "day off" from doing the work of saving
souls, that a life of priestly self-denial and penance will bring forth
a bountiful harvest of joy in eternity if they persevere to the point
of their dying breaths. Along with the fiery and uncompromising Saint
Padre Pio, Saint John Marie Vianney shows the harvest that can be reaped
when a priest preaches the reality of Hell and the necessity of rooting
out sin from one's life by loving God as He has revealed Himself through
His true Church.
August 10:
Saint Lawrence the Deacon: Listed in the Roman Canon and thus
mentioned during every offering of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition,
Saint Lawrence, a Spaniard, is one of the greatest martyrs in the history
of the Church. He served as an archdeacon to Pope Saint Sixtus II and
was subjected to martyrdom because he would not disclose the location
of the goods that were used for the Pope's support of the poor, the
priests and the parishes of Rome. He was placed on a gridiron and slowly
roasted to death. He had a sense of perfect calm as he was being roasted,
trusting completely in Our Lord's providential care for him. He amazed
his executors by saying at one point, "You can turn me over now.
I'm done on this side." Saint Lawrence prayed ceaselessly during
his martyrdom for the conversion of the city of Rome. This has direct
application to our own circumstances as Catholics in the United States
of America in 2004. Some say that it is not "realistic" to
proclaim the Social Reign of Christ the King and to plant seeds for
the conversion of the nation to the true Faith. Some say that all we
can do is prevent more harm from being done than would otherwise be
the case if some other set of bandits exercised the levers of civil
power. It is not "possible" nor ever desirable to try to work
for the "triumphalist" notion of Christ the King. Saint Lawrence,
whose dead body reached out to touch the body of Saint Stephen when
it was brought to its final resting place in the church named for him,
teaches us that all forms of martyrdom, including white martyrdom, are
used by God to effect the conversion of men and their nations. The Faith
is ultimate realism. Everything else is nothing other than an illusion.
And the Faith that impelled Saint Lawrence to die rather than to betray
secrets entrusted to him by the Vicar of Christ is the same Faith that
should impel us to trust not in the empty slogans of empty men but only
in the Catholic Faith and its supreme triumph as the sole guiding force
of nations as the fruit of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
August
11: Saint Philomena: Perhaps the greatest humiliation this
saint, whose cult was approved by Pope Gregory XVI and confirmed by
Blessed Pius IX, Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint Pius X, has suffered has
been at the hands of those who say she never existed. As insulting as
this is to a child-martyr whose relics were recovered in 1802, Saint
Philomena continues to work wonders in the lives of those who are devoted
to her. As one holy card about her notes, Pope Gregory XVI, who called
her the "Wonder Worker of the Nineteenth Century," canonized
her based solely on the evidence of the miracles worked by her intercession
since nothing was known from the historical record about her life. The
mystery surrounding Saint Philomena--and the anonymity in which she
languished for about fifteen centuries--teaches us to trust in the signs
that God sends us about those who have won a crown of eternal glory
and who should be invoke to help us in our spiritual and temporal needs.
Either the popes mentioned above were correct in their promotion of
the cult of Saint Philomena or they were wrong. If they were correct,
if actual miracles occurred as a result of prayers offered to Saint
Philomena, then the Vatican was wrong a few years ago to remove her
name, albeit quietly, from the Roman martyrology Pope Gregory XVI proclaimed
her the Patronness of the Living Rosary. Blessed Pauline Jaricot, the
foundress of the Living Rosary, helped to foster devotion to Saint Philomena,
as did the Cure of Ars, as mentioned above. Blessed Pius IX proclaimed
her to be the Patronness of the Children of Mary. Pope Leo XIII approved
the creation of the Confraternity and, later, the Archconfraternity
of Saint Philomena. Were all of these popes and the Cure of Ars and
Blessed Pauline Jaricot wrong? No, they were not. They were correct.
We need Saint Philomena's intercession in our lives and in the life
of the Church. Saint Philomena, powerful with God, pray for us!
August 12:
Saint Clare of Assisi: The final feast day I wish to offer
a reflection on in this essay is that of Saint Clare, the foundress
of the Poor Clares. Saint Clare received her veil from Saint Francis
of Assisi, living a life of aristocratic wealth and and privilege to
found the Convent of San Damiano in Assisi to foster Franciscan spirituality,
characterized especially deep devotion to Our Lord's Real Presence in
the Most Blessed Sacrament. So joyful was her demeanor that prominent
churchmen, including popes, cardinals and bishops, all made pilgrimages
to seek out her advice and counsel. Saint Clare's devotion to Our Lord's
Real Presence became the characteristic of the Poor Clares. So much
so that the Poor Clares are one of the few older orders of religious
women that have, by and large, retained their original charism of Perpetual
Eucharistic Adoration in spite of the revolutions that have rocked the
Church in the past forty to fifty years. Saint Clare herself was so
devoted to the Blessed Sacrament that she repelled a pending attack
of Saracens on the Convent of San Damiano by taking a monstrance containing
Our Lord in His Real Presence and showing it to the infidels, who fled
in utter fright. The demons and their human minions are terrified in
the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament, which is why there are such terrible
shrieks of horror let out by those who support child killing under cover
of law in this nation whenever a priest or a bishop processes solemnly
in front of killing center with a monstrance containing the Real Presence
of the God-Man, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Saint Clare's
holy simplicity and embrace of Franciscan poverty teach us to reject
the ways of American consumerism and self-seeking, striving to live
as simply and poorly as possible so as to store up riches in Heaven.
Well, these
are just a few reflections on some recent and upcoming feasts commemorated
on their proper days in the calendar of Tradition. This is by no means
an exhaustive listing of all of the saints commemorated in late July
or early August. My point in reviewing these well known facts is to
demonstrate that there is much spiritual profit for us to take the liturgical
life of the Church very seriously. And it is only the calendar of Tradition
that provides us with the full richness of that liturgical life. As
one who grew up in pretty thoroughly secular household in the 1950s
and 1960s, I know that I would have been far better off earlier in life
had the Faith I learned at Saint Aloysius School in Great Neck, New
York, been reinforced at home by the assiduous observance and commemoration
of the liturgical feasts of the Church. God is so merciful to us erring
sinners. He gives us just enough years so that we might be able to begin
to get things right, if for no other reason than to help our children
reject the ways of cultural pluralism, religious indifferentism, and
hedonistic individualism and to embrace instead nothing other than the
examples of the saints who have been given to us in the great calendar
of Tradition to imitate and to rely upon to help us get to Heaven.
Indeed, as an upcoming
article of mine on the Seattle Catholic website will indicate, we have
to spend more time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and to the
Mother of God rather than being constantly agitated by all of the particular
problems that beset the Church and the world. Yes, we should be concerned
about the state of the Church and the world. However, we should not
be agitated. Agitation comes from the devil. We know that the Church
has survived despite all of the warfare waged against her by various
potentates from the very beginning of her missionary activity. We know
that the Church has survived despite the best efforts of her members,
including us, to tear her apart by means of our sins and bad example.
We know that she has survived despite apostasy from within and despite
the revolutions that have racked her in the last forty to forty-six
years or so. She will survive until the end of time. We must thus be
aware of our circumstances, flee from the Novus Ordo and the conciliarist
religion, seek out the Immemorial Mass of Tradition wherever it is offered
by a validly ordained priest who is not a sedevacantist, protect our
children from the rot of this horrible culture, and foster deep devotion
to Our Lady and all of the saints and angels in order to be prepared
for the red martyrdom that may very well becoming our way sooner rather
than later. A regular habit of meditating upon the lives of the saints,
especially as they are commemorated in the calendar of Tradition, will
help us transcend the problems of the moment and focus more fully on
getting ourselves home to Heaven as Mary's consecrated slaves who give
everything at all times and in all circumstances to her Sorrowful and
Immaculate Heart.
Our Lady,
Queen of All Saints, pray for us to aspire to the highest level of sanctity
possible so that we may be as close to you in Heaven as is possible.