https://novena.cardinalburke.com/novena/reflection-four

Introduction

Making the Nine-Month Novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, entrusting ourselves to her guidance and protection and confiding to her intercession our many intentions for the Church and for the world, we rejoice in the perfect union of her Immaculate Heart with the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, Our Lord and Savior.

As the Virgin Mother of God was totally for Christ from the very first moment of her conception, so we, following her example and seeking her intercession, desire to be more and more totally for Christ. We rejoice in the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah regarding the Virginal Conception and Birth of the Savior: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7, 14).

These words attained their fulfillment at the Annunciation. The Virgin Mary, with her “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” (“Let it be done to me according to your word,” [Luke 1, 38]), became the Mother of God, the Theotokos, “God-Bearer” to the world. She exercised her mission of God-Bearer, in a most extraordinary way, on Tepeyac Hill from December 9th to 12th of 1531 by means of her apparitions to Saint Juan Diego and his uncle Juan Bernardino. Her exercise of the mission continues to our day through the miraculous imprint of her image on the mantle (tilma) of Saint Juan Diego which has been faithfully venerated in her “sacred little house” (Nican Mopohua, no. 26) from the time of her apparitions to the present day.

When, after his first visit with the Bishop, Juan Diego begged Our Lady to choose another more efficacious messenger, Our Lady responded to him:

Listen my youngest son, know for sure that I have no lack of servants, of messengers, to whom I can give the task of carrying my breath, my word, so that they carry out my will; but it is necessary that you, personally, go and plead, that by your intercession, my wish, my will, become a reality. (Nican Mopohua, nos. 58-59)

From Our Lady of Guadalupe, we, together with Saint Juan Diego, learn that we are called to become bearers of God, heralds of Christ, in the world. As bearers of God, we, like Saint Juan Diego, are servants of the Mother of God. Through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, may we become ever more her faithful servants, so that all of our brothers and sisters may know her as the Mother of God and may experience her unconditional maternal love for them, so that, through her maternal care, they may know, love, and serve her Divine Son.

I hope you will share this message with others.

Cardinal Raymond Burke

The Chairman and Council members of the Latin Mass Society of New Zealand wish everyone

a blessed Christmas and a holy New Year

Gregorius Magnus: biannual
magazine of the Una Voce
Federation

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