Spiritual Journey
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Chapter II

The Perfections of God

We ought to remember during this entire contemplation of God that we must apply all that is said of God to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is God. We cannot separate Jesus Christ from God. We cannot separate the Christian religion from Jesus Christ, Who is God, and we must affirm and believe that only the Catholic religion is the Christian religion. These affirmations have, as a result, inescapable conclusions that no ecclesiastic authority can contest: outside of Jesus Christ and the Catholic religion, that is, outside of the Church, there is no salvation, no eternal life. Whoever is saved attains to everlasting life by his adhesion to the Mystical Body of Our Lord.

Another consequence: all of the societies that Our Lord created must necessarily concur, in their finality to make souls become Catholic and to keep them Catholic, in order to procure their eternal salvation, which is the end of all Creation, of the Incarnation and of the Redemption.

These conclusions are timeless and unchangeable. They are the expression of the whole Revelation, and were the directive principles of the entire Church until the Second Vatican Council.

This “Conciliar Church” is imbued with the principles of 1789. These are Masonic principles with respect to religion and religions in general and with respect to civil society. Its foundation was an imposture inspired by Hell for the destruction of the Catholic religion, of its Magisterium, of its priesthood, and of the Sacrifice of Our Lord.

This new Church can no longer sing the praises of Jesus Christ, universal King of nations, can no longer have the thoughts of Our Lord with respect to the world. That is why the whole spirit of the liturgy has been modified by the changing of a multitude of details, in texts and in gestures.

Contemplation of the Word Incarnate as it is sung in all the liturgical feasts is henceforward rendered impossible for the new Church. We must, at any price, remain faithful to the spirit of the Catholic Church if we wish to devote ourselves to contemplation of the Divine mysteries, of the mystery of the Incarnate Word and the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Divine perfections are distinguished from divine operations, although nothing can be separated in God. It is the weakness of our mind which constrains us to study God in a human manner.

God is Truth, Goodness and Beauty

These are the attributes of the Being that God is. God, possessing all being in Himself, possesses therefore truth, goodness and beauty in their complete perfection. The more beings participate in the Divine Being, the more they participate in His Truth, His Goodness and His Beauty.

Our knowledge of God is quite imperfect here below, and it will still be so in Heaven, because one would have to be God to comprehend Him in all His Perfection and His Being. It is thus that the Three Divine Persons know one another.

One way towards a greater knowledge of God consists of denying with respect to Him the limitations of creatures (which otherwise serve to prove the existence of God). We thereby refuse any imperfection in God; God is perfect. We deny any limitation; He is infinite. We deny any limit in space; He is everywhere, omnipresent. We deny any limit in time; He is eternal. We deny any change; He is unchanging.

One should cite at this instance numerous texts of Holy Scripture. It can be said that the entire Old Testament is a hymn to the infinite perfection of God. We marvel at the spirit of adoration of the grandeur and omnipotence of God, of His Providence in the history of humanity, and especially in the history of Israel, preparing for the Messiah.

Then the New Testament follows as the manifestation, as the epiphany of the Holy Trinity, of His Infinite Charity, of His unfathomable mercy for the sinners that we are.

With what profound conviction should we pronounce the liturgical prayers which remind us, unceasingly, of these divine perfections. Then humility, silence and everything which distances us from the world would come to us naturally. We would live in God, in the Holy Trinity, in Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ, in this ocean of goodness, mercy and omnipotence.

Then Jesus Christ will take more and more the true place in us which is due to Him as God Incarnate. Then His Eucharist, Sacrifice and Sacrament, will become the centre of our lives and of our thoughts, through which we will penetrate into the immense reality of the Holy Trinity.

Chapter III

The Divine Life

After the marvels of infinite grandeur of the Divine Being, considered in a rather static manner, let us try to begin the meditation and contemplation of God in His dynamism, in His life, and in His operations, both internal and external. It is a marvellous world that we enter, as Moses approaching the burning bush. Let us purify our hearts and our souls in order to ask the Spirit of God for a ray of light, as will be the light of glory in Heaven, to discover a little of the burning light, Who is the Divine Light of which St. John spoke with such eloquence and conviction in his Gospel and his Epistles: “The message we have heard from Him and announce to you is this: that God is light, and in Him is no darkness” (I John 1: 5). “He that loved not knoweth not God; for God is Charity. By this hath the Charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we may live by Him ” (I John 4: 8-9).

“Deus caritas est – God is Charity”. These are without doubt the words which most perfectly enlightens the divine operations, internal and external.

One may say in truth that God is Trinity because He is Charity. How could He be Charity if there were only one person in God? God is then a burning furnace of charity in which the Three Divine Persons know and love one another eternally.

The office of the Holy Trinity crowns the entire liturgical year. The Holy Trinity is the great mystery by which all of God’s plans are accomplished. Everything proceeds from the Holy Trinity, and everything returns to the Holy Trinity.

Nothing is explained, nothing is understood, nothing exists without the Holy Trinity, the inexhaustible and eternal source of Charity, and this both within the mystery itself of the Triune God and outside the Trinity.

“Caritas Pater est, gratia Filius, communicatio Spiritus Sanctus, O Beata Trinitas !– The Father is Charity, the Son is Grace, the Holy Ghost is their communication: O Blessed Trinity!” “Ex quo omnia, per quem omnia, in quo omnia, ipsi gloria in saecula – From Whom are all things, by Whom are all things, in Whom are all things, to Him be glory forever” (Antiphons from the Feast of the Holy Trinity).

“Now as the burning sun sets, do Thou, O everlasting Unity, O Blessed Trinity, our Light, pour forth love into our hearts” (Hymn of Vespers, Trinity Sunday).

How this meditation on the Triune Charity and Charity – Trinity is comforting and encouraging, as it is also a source of unity!

Creation

If we pass from this eternal Charity to the diffusion of this Charity in God’s creatures, we will soon discover in every creature the mark of Divine Charity. God being Charity, can He communicate anything other than Charity?

The mark of charity in creatures is manifest in their order towards their end. Each creature is constituted in view of his end. His end is written in the nature and in the supernatural elevation of spiritual creatures and in the nature of corporeal beings. An “ordo ad finem – ordering towards an end”, is written in each creature. It is in this order that we find the dynamism of charity, which draws each creature towards its end. Clearly this dynamism is fully conscious in spiritual creatures and unconscious in the animal, vegetable and mineral orders.

“Homo ad Deum ordinatur – man is ordered to God”, says St. Thomas. The final end of man, and moreover of the angels, is God.

The Church teaches in our Catholic catechisms: “Why did God create man? God created man to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him so that by this means he might attain eternal Life.”

This response is but the synthesis of that which Our Lord teaches in the Gospel: “Haec est autem vita aeterna, ut cognoscant te solum Deum verum et quem misisti, Jesum Christum – Now this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent” (John 17: 3).

This principle of finalization, according to which Charity is poured forth, is the driving force of all activity in creation. It is in accordance with it that even the intelligence and will of spiritual beings must cooperate together for the obtaining of their end by free acts. This is because even freedom is dependent on the end. Free acts must therefore contribute meritoriously to the attaining of this goal. Liberty is not independent from the final end, but is given so that the spiritual creature can choose the different means which lead to the end. Thus it cannot, without causing a disorder, choose a means which turns away from this end.

These principles are elementary for the realization of the divine plan: to pour forth charity, which is nothing else than union with God. All of Divine Providence has been, and will always be, oriented in this sense.

The true meaning of intellect, of will, and of liberty, can only be grasped through this light coming from God “which enlightened every man who cometh into the world” (John 1: 9), through the living, burning Light of divine Charity. God is free and communicates freedom in view of the first commandment of love, which contains all the law: “One only God shalt thou adore, and thou shalt love Him perfectly.”

All creation depends on this First Commandment and all persons and all societies, creatures of God, must submit to it, even civil societies. Everything must converge and lead to this love and nothing should be opposed to it. The reign of God that Our Lord has come to re-establish is nothing else than this reign of Love.

It is at the level of these fundamental principles of Divine Providence and of His Infinite Wisdom that the error of Liberalism rests. This Liberalism tends to ignore the finalization of liberty, giving it a realm outside of the final end that it does not have in the divine plan, to the detriment of divine Law and of the duties of diverse societies. These societies thereby allow sin and scandals to proliferate. This error destroys individual and social morals; it opposes the reign of Love of God and of Our Lord.

Let us contemplate the act of love that creation was, and let us strive to bring about in and around ourselves this reign of God and of Our Lord, for the reestablishment of which God accepted a death on the Cross, manifesting anew His infinite love for disorderly and sinful creatures. “O admirabile commercium ... – O admirable Exchange ...”

How we ought to delight in rereading the extraordinary passage of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians (3: 8ff), which the liturgy presents to us on the day of the Feast of the Sacred Heart. The creation of this new human family of Christians is in truth a new creation which prepares the predestined and the elect of God: “Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri – To as many as received Him, He gave the power of becoming sons of God” (John 1: 12). It is the creation of the Mystical Body of Jesus, to which we adhere by a valid and fruitful baptism. “Euntes docete omnes gentes, baptizantes eos in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti – Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Matth. 28: 19). This family is the Catholic family, and it is it exclusively, because it alone possesses the entire faith in Jesus Christ and in His work: the Church.

Vatican II’s desire to integrate in the Church non-Catholics, such as they are, is a scandalous and adulterous desire. The Secretariat for the Unity of Christians by favouring the granting of mutual concessions – dialogue – leads to the destruction of the Catholic Faith, the destruction of the Catholic priesthood, and the elimination of the power of Peter and of the bishops. The missionary spirit of the apostles, the martyrs and the saints is eliminated. For as long as this Secretariat keeps the false ecumenism as its orientation and Roman ecclesiastical authorities approve it, we can affirm that they remain in open, official rupture with all the past of the Church and with its official Magisterium. It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest wanting to remain Catholic to separate himself from this Conciliar Church for as long as it does not rediscover the Tradition of the Church and of the Catholic Faith.

As a conclusion from these few considerations on Divine Wisdom in the plan of creation, let us recall that the work of sanctification of souls here below, that the exercise of charity by the practice of the commandments of love against the spirit of the flesh, the spirit of the world and of the devil, is attributed particularly to the Holy Ghost, Spirit of Love. St. Gregory, in the lessons of the Feast of Pentecost, eloquently and forcefully expresses this link between the love of God and the observance of the Commandments, relying on the words of Our Lord Himself: “Si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit, et Pater meus diliget eum et ad eum veniemus et mansionem apud eum faciemus – If anyone love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make our abode with him” (John 14: 23), and of the words of St. John in his epistles: “Qui dicit se Deum nosse et mandata ejus non custodit, mendax est – He who saith that he knoweth God and keepth not His Commandments, is a liar” (I John 2: 4).

O Jesus, O Mary, help us to accomplish this request of the Our Father, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”, so that our souls might become the temple of the Holy Trinity today, and for eternity!

Let us, priests or future priests of the Lord, live in the active presence of the omnipresent and all-powerful God. May we be able to see in the Eucharist, God, Creator and Redeemer, the Jesus of the crib, the Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus Prophet, Priest and King, teaching His future priests and ordaining them before ascending the Cross, the Jesus Who rises from the dead, Who ascends to Heaven and sends the Spirit of Love to found His Church, His Spouse, His Mystical Body and draw its members to Heaven!

May we acquire a missionary spirit, transmitting this Divine Fire to souls by the example of a living faith which returns everything to God and to Jesus Christ, enlightening souls on the infinite wisdom of God, His goodness, His mercy, accustoming souls to humility before God, to adore His will, to totally depend upon Him, associating souls with the conquest of the reign of Our Lord, of His Sacred Heart and of the reign of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.