Communicantes

Accueil
Communicantes: January 2001
 

Sermon of His Excellency
Bishop Bernard Fellay

Rome, August 9th, 2000, at Colle Oppio, the ancient gardens of Emperor Nero


(…) This pilgrimage has followed its course, one could say, "as smoothly as clockwork", with an amiability and a cordiality that we must acknowledge, but nonetheless it is missing one thing: the essential. We are making this pilgrimage with two opposing sentiments. Yes, there is in this pilgrimge that which resembles the sentiments felt by Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. There is something of His beatitude and something of His crucifixion.

The beatitude

Text Box: The Basilica of Saint John Lateran, the Pope’s Cathedral
When one speaks of Rome, one speaks of the Eternal City, and the Eternal City reminds us, already with the word "eternal", of Heaven. And we sang it these past days: yesterday, today, with the psalm: "Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus– I rejoiced when they said unto me: let us go into the house of the Lord." Let us go into this Jerusalem. Certainly, the pilgrims of the Old Testament could say this of their Holy City, but this Holy City is the image of the heavenly Jerusalem and it’s because it is the image of the heavenly Jerusalem that it is a cause of great joy. Yes, my dear brethren, we must repeat with Saint Paul: "Vos estis cives Sanctorum – You are inhabitants with the Saints" – We Catholics, participating in this Communion of Saints, truly have the Saints for our friends. We can see, from here, the Coliseum, where so many martyrs have died. We celebrate the Mass here on the grounds of the villa of Nero, where Christians have been burnt, as living torches. All the martyrs of antiquity, all the saints who have sacrificed themselves in this Holy City, are our friends: "Cives Sanctorum". We are their co-citizens. They are in Heaven, and we are still here, but as you well know, the Church is composed of three parts: the militant, the suffering, and the triumphant. It forms one sole mystical body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are this Body; and in this city where we find so many martyrs, so many signs of holiness, we are, as it were, forced to think of Heaven.

If there is a city to which God has bestowed His grace so that it can be distributed to souls, we can certainly say that it is this one. And this joy has been yours in each of these processions, in entering the basilicas, in the professing of the faith: the joy of the Saints, already a little of the joy of Heaven, a joy that is all pure, the joy of being with God, a prelude of Heaven.

Crucifixion

As you can see, we have not been permitted to celebrate Mass in the basilicas. In fact, to say it simply, the Mass of Rome, the Roman Mass, that which began here from great antiquity, of whose vestige we can trace back to the most ancient Gelasian, Leonine and Gregorian sacramentaries, that which we could celebrate in its entirety, from beginning to end, with a manuscript from the XI century; this Mass, which has formed all the Saints of this city, has lost its royalties. It’s like the tip of the iceberg, it’s like the indication of an unknown tragedy, which we dare to call a crucifixion. The crucifixion of Tradition, and not by its exterior enemies, the habitual persecutors of the Church, but by those from within. Do we speak too boldly? We are only using the words of Pope Paul VI, who spoke of the "auto-demolition", who spoke of the "smoke of Satan" which had entered into the Temple of God. We may also make reference to Fatima, to Sister Lucy who speaks of a "diabolical disorientation": she speaks of the Church and of the Hierarchy in the Church.

Yes, the beacon of Truth is, as it were, extinguished in the entire world. If we consider it, if we look at where it is going, where does this transmission of the Faith lead, what is being given to our youth, to the Catholic children of today? And the little that remains is being mixed with a confusion that is not far from the principle of non-contradiction, as in ecumenism. And what shall we say of this refusal of the Cross? Of this refusal to oppose the world, which naturally draws one to the wide and easy road to perdition. Yes, in crucifying her Tradition, it is as if the Church crucifies herself. But today, in this pilgrimage, we have a particular desire, which may be also a supplication to the Holy Father, and which is for us, at any rate, the sole means which we deem appropriate in this tragic situation in which we find ourselves: the Mass and our Blessed Mother.

Yes, give it back, do justice to the Mass! We beseech the Holy Father. Not to us: who are we? But to the Mass! Give it back its rights, give to the Tradition of the Church its rights, because she does have them! Look upon the souls who hunger and thirst for doctrine, who thirst for holiness, and who receive only the Sunday insipidness, if not something worse. Why prevent men from receiving this nourishment which saves? Why hinder the priests? We know of so many who suffer, who haven’t had the courage, up to now, to celebrate this Mass, and who suffer and are persecuted for the least indication of a conservative tendency. Give back to the Church her Mass, her Tradition, for you have the power to do so.

The Blessed Virgin

It is clear, my dear brethren, that Fatima has something to do with our times and it is truly astonishing and extraordinary to note that what should have been the beginning of a great Marian expansion, with the publishing of the third secret of Fatima, has instead sunk it into oblivion.

It is no longer spoken of, as if it were finished. But the Blessed Virgin said that God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, wished to introduce the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as a final means of salvation. Therefore it is the appropriate means for these difficult times in which we live today, where the world is overcome with atheism, with hatred for God, as one could see even here in the beginning of July (no doubt the Bishop refers here to the satanic manifestation of the homosexuals in the streets of Rome). Alas! This devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary has, as it were, disappeared. And in this also, we have a request. And this request is that the Pope bring to its conclusion what he has begun: that not only the third secret of Fatima be published in its entirety, but that this devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary be truly encouraged everywhere.

We have so many proofs and almost all of us can verify, we who are here, that if we are here, it is thanks to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is thanks to the rosary. From whichever country, from whichever culture we come, it is not through our own merit that we are here. And if we remain faithful in these terrible times of indescribable darkness, it will be thanks to Mary, to the rosary, to the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And we sincerely invite you, my dear faithful, to take very seriously this admonition because what we have here is an admonition from Heaven itself.

Home | Contact | Mass Centres | Schools | Pilgrimages | Retreats | Precious Blood Residence
District Superior's Ltrs | Superor General's Ltrs | Various
Newsletter | Eucharistic Crusade | Rosary Clarion | For the Clergy | Coast to Coast | Saints | Links