The Latin Mass Society of New Zealand
Gregorius Magnus: biannual
magazine of the Una Voce
Federation
Dear FIUV Members and Friends: New Edition of Gregorius Magnus |
From the FIUV President, Joseph ShawGregorius Magnus 16 is now available!See it on ISSUU, optimised for mobile devices. Download the pdf for viewing on a screen. Download the high-res pdf for printing. This edition includes features on the summer’s walking pilgrimages, the TLM and the media, and a new book about the Traditional movement:The Latin Mass and the Intellectuals: Petitions to Save the Ancient Mass, 1966-2007The deadline for the next issue of Gregorius Magnus is 1st February 2024. Please let us have your local news! We want to hear from all over the world. Email president@fiuv.org.uk Would you like to advertise? Or to contribute to future editions? Click on the links. |
President’s Message
by Joseph Shaw
Welcome to a new edition of Gregorius Magnus, devoted particularly to walking pilgrimages, which have shown enormous growth this year, despite, or perhaps because of, the more hostile ecclesial environment in which we find ourselves. This edition will appear in the final days of the much-anticipated Synod on Synodality. Since the Synod will take place behind closed doors, it is particularly difficult to anticipate the general atmosphere when these words will be read. What I can say is that, whatever may happen at the Synod, the FIUV and its member associations, and in general the movement in support of the Traditional Mass, took part in the Synod consultation in a serious and sincere way, and that, as far as the diocesan, national, and continental stages went – whose reports can be read online – our voices were not entirely drowned out. In a previous edition of Gregorius Magnus, I picked out passages in some of these documents noting our concerns. The focus of the Synod seems destined to lie elsewhere, of course, and we will not be surprised if the systematic marginalisation of Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass will not capture the attention of the Synod Fathers – not forgetting the lay participants – for very long.
Nevertheless, the framing of our contributions in the reports is interesting. We have been set down, not unreasonably, as one of various ‘marginalised’ groups. We tend to be mentioned at the end of a list of disaffected groups of Catholics, such as those in illicit unions and those with same-sex attraction. Several of these reports were at pains to emphasise that we constitute a very small minority, but the same is clearly true of the other groups they mention as well. I wonder what the reaction would be if homosexual Catholics were told that they must not attend Mass in the same ecclesiastical building as respectable people, but would have to make do with the parish hall or a nearby gymnasium, as some Traditional Catholics have been told in the United States and elsewhere. What
would people say, again, if divorced and (invalidly) remarried Catholics were told that they would in future have to drive for an hour or more to attend services?
I don’t think we would need a specially convened Synod in Rome, at vast cost, to work out that such rules are ‘unpastoral’. Pope Francis would not lose any time in reminding us that the Church is a ‘field hospital’, a remedy for the sick, and not a prize for the righteous. And he would be right to do so. The Church is indeed a hospital for the sick, and this fact should focus our attention on the spiritual remedies the Church must employ, not to gratify patients’ disordered appetites but to restore them to spiritual health. The remedies certainly include the sacraments. Following the fashion in politics for medicalising disagreements, some of our opponents like to imply that Traditional Catholics are suffering from some psychological pathology, but if so, making it more difficult for us to access the sacraments, or trying to make us do so in conditions designed to demoralise us, doesn’t seem a very logical response The saying, of obscure origin, that ‘beatings will continue until morale improves’, could have been invented for our situation. Those wondering about the resilience of the traditional movement should remember, however, that this has always been our lot. Even under Summorum Pontificum, many of the Federation’s member associations faced extraordinary opposition, and even open hostility, from those charged with providing them with pastoral care. Our lay associations, religious communities, and priestly institutes were not founded to bask in the approval of bien pensant opinion or the favour of the ecclesial establishment. Our movement was formed in the grief of Catholics deprived of the liturgy they loved, and since then it has been engaged in unending difficulties, and sometimes outright persecution. However imperfect we ourselves may be, we know the value of what we are defending, and we also know that, in end, the Church will remember it too.
Qui seminant in lacrimis, in exsultatione metent.
Those who sow in tears, shall reap in joy. (Ps 125:5)
Read the full online version of Gregorius Magnus here: https://lms.org.uk/sites/default/files/resource_documents/gregmag/winter2024web.pdf
“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So be it. My dear brothers and sisters, today we celebrate the solemnity of Pentecost, calling to mind the visible descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, when the Holy Spirit filled the faithful hearts with his Divine presence and imbued their souls with his seven gifts and especially the gift of divine love. Since that day the fire of divine love began to burn in souls.What are the effects of this divine fire? It is the transformation of our very weak and fickle human love into a supernatural love. With this supernatural love we can love God with all our strength and love our neighbour as ourselves. The fire of divine love in our soul contains especially the virtue of fortitude. The virtue of fortitude gave the faithful for two thousand years the ability to prefer death rather than betray the baptismal promises, die rather than sin, die rather than betray the marriage vows, die rather than betray priestly vows, rather die than betray religious vows.To remain faithful to God’s commandments nowadays families, young people, priests and bishops are often marginalized, ridiculed and persecuted by the dictatorial power of the new global neo-Marxist ideology of gender and worship of the earth and climate. However there are also families, young people, priests, seminarians and even bishops who are marginalized and ridiculed sometimes in the ecclesial sphere because of their loyalty to the integrity of the Catholic faith and Divine worship according to tradition of the apostles and of our ancestors.Pentecost is also the day of the birth of the visible Church, which is the great family of all adopted sons of God. However, there was another divine creation called the human family consisting of a father, mother and their children. Our Saviour Jesus Christ raised the natural family to the dignity of the domestic Church through the sacrament of marriage. Nowadays the natural family and the Christian family has become the main object of attack and destruction of the global neo-Marxist ideology of the gender regime. We live in the time of the family, paradoxically because it is attacked. Today the family is called to give witness to the Divine beauty of his being and his vocation.
To remain faithful to its vocation the Catholic family should practice firstly daily prayer. Pope Pius XII said, “We implore you, have at your heart to keep this wonderful tradition of Christian families: Public evening prayers, to meet at the end of each day, to implore God’s blessing and honour the Immaculate Virgin with the Rosary in his praise for all those who sleep under the same roof. If the harsh and inexorable demands of modern life does not leave you time to devote to give gratitude to God through these blessed few minutes, or add to it, following the cherished custom of our fathers, a short reading of the lives of the saints, saints that the Church proposes to us as models and special protectors every day, beware of sacrificing, for fast that it must be, this time together that you devote to God, to praise and present your desires, your needs, your sorrows and your works. The centre of your existence must be crucifix or image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Let Christ reign in your home and that you meet every day around him. “(Address of 12 February 1941).
O Catholic families, fathers and mothers, children, young men and girls, do not be afraid to fight against sin, against the seductive spirit of the neo-pagan ideology. Do not be afraid to fight to defend the commandments of God, to defend the integrity of your faith and your chastity. Do not be afraid to be heroic. Let us hear what Pope Pius XII said: “In modern times, as in the early centuries of Christianity, in countries where religious persecution is rife, open or underhanded and no less harsh, the most humble faithful can, from one moment to the other, be in dramatic need to choose between their faith that they have the duty to preserve intact, and their freedom, their livelihoods or even their own lives. But normal times, under ordinary conditions of Christian families, it sometimes happens that souls see the alternative of violating an inalienable duty or expose themselves, in their health, their property, in their family and social positions in sacrifices and painful and urgent risks: they see themselves placed in the need to be heroic and to be heroic, if they want to remain faithful to their duties and remain in the grace of God “(Address of 20 August 1941).
My dear brothers and sisters, the Catholic family still has a vocation that is sometimes forgotten today. It is the vocation of being the first seminaries (cf. Second Vatican Council, Optatam Totius, n. 2). What is the most urgent need for the Church and the world today? The most urgent need today is to have truly Catholic families who become the first seminaries of priestly and religious vocations. Pope John Paul II told Catholic couples: “If Jesus with an act of love to your family, gave to one of your sons the gift of priestly or religious vocation, what is your attitude? I hope you believe in the word of Don Bosco who said: The greatest gift that God can give to a family is a priest son. So be ready to receive this gift with heartfelt and sincere gratitude. “(Angelus, 13 January 1980).
Dear fathers, dear mothers, dear grandfathers and grandmothers Catholics say, “Lord, if you want call one of my sons, one of my grand-sons, to the priesthood.” Young men and women who feel in your soul the vocation to marriage, the vocation to found a domestic church, say, “Lord, if you desire it call one of my future sons to the priesthood. “And you boys and young men, some of you might say,” Lord, I am ready to follow You, if You call me to the priesthood. ”
What a great vocation to be a true Catholic! What a great vocation to fight for the integrity of faith and God’s commandments! What a great vocation to be a Catholic family, a domestic church! What a great vocation to be a young man, a chaste young woman! What a great vocation to be a seminarian and a priest with a pure and ardent heart!
Do not be afraid of Goliath today, the dictatorship of the new global anti-Christian ideology. The Divine love of fire and gift of the Holy Spirit will make us able to defeat the Goliath of today with the five stones of David’s sling.
Come, Holy Spirit and made flower again many domestic churches, which will give us the five stones with which David will defeat Goliath: that is, good Catholic fathers and mothers, pure children, pure young people, intrepid and pure priests and bishops. Come Holy Spirit, come! So be it”.
Homily of Bishop Athanasius Schneider – Chartres Pilgrimage – Pentecost Sunday 2015
(Translated from French by Google Translate)
Source: The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny – (with many more pictures): Notre-Dame de Chrétienté
Thanks to “Oivas 1″ at Le Forum Catholique.