”Desiderio desideravi hoc pascha manducare vobiscum, antequam patiar"(Luke 22:15)

In Opposition to the Pope’s Letter, ‘Desiderio desideravi’;

The New Mass Brought Bad Fruits

My dear brethren,

When we look around at the situation in the world today, especially since the war in Ukraine, it seems that we are at an important turning point of history, the end of “western civilisation”. The “West” has been apostate; it has given up the Catholic Faith which had been the cause of its greatness, and has fallen into materialism, consumerism and abject immorality. Yet through its monetary power, a small number, having grasped that power its hands, strives to exercise global control over the whole world. And there is a similar situation in the Church.

Archbishop Lefebvre said many times: there is only one Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Prince of Peace, the solution of every crisis, even economic crisis; there is need of a wholehearted return to our Lord Jesus Christ, conversion to our Lord Jesus Christ, so that He may reign not only on each individual soul, but also on families, on cities, on countries, on every human organisation. To re-establish His reign will be the recovery of true Christian civilisation and peace. It is the duty of every member of the Church, our duty, to make Jesus Christ reign in us and around us.

Now the Church sings: “regnavit a ligno Deus – God has reigned by the wood.” The Victory of our Lord Jesus Christ over sin is by His Sacrifice on the Cross; His reign is established by this Sacrifice. St Paul says: “making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven”. There is no peace without forgiveness of past offenses, otherwise there is revenge after revenge; this vicious circle of revenge can be stopped only by forgiveness of offenses, and that is a fruit of the forgiveness of sin that comes from the Cross, where our Lord prayed for his enemies: if God has forgiven us, we ought to forgive one another, as our Lord teaches us: “But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences”.

Our Lord is the solution even of economic crisis, indeed at the root of every economic crisis there is the greed of many, insatiable greed that becomes really out of all proportion: some people accumulating trillions in their hands! But even poor people can be burning with greed: they have very little, but they desire much! The remedy for greed, and thereby for all economic crisis, is in the poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ, from His birth in the crib to His death on the Cross.

So, in order to “restore all things in Christ” and make “His Kingdom come”, we need the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. And we have it: the holy Sacrifice of the Mass! Hence, already St Pius X could say: “Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be preserved by all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.” He was speaking of the Traditional Liturgy of the Mass. For him, the Traditional Liturgy, with all its solemnity, with Gregorian Chant, beautiful vestments, incense, well-trained altar boys, etc, is “the foremost and indispensable font” of the Christian spirit.

In that same document, St Pius X wanted to ban “the fatal influence exercised on sacred art by profane and theatrical art.” He continues: “And it is vain to hope that the blessing of heaven will descend abundantly upon us, when our homage to the Most High, instead of ascending in the odour of sweetness, puts into the hand of the Lord the scourges wherewith of old the Divine Redeemer drove the unworthy profaners from the Temple.” One would think he was referring to the new Mass.

In the French seminary at Rome in which Archbishop Lefebvre studied, this love and esteem of the Traditional Liturgy was fostered. Archbishop Lefebvre himself had the grace to be trained as one of the Masters of Ceremony; later on, priests were impressed by the fact that he always knew all the pontifical ceremonies very well. He always wanted our Society of Saint Pius X to love the Liturgy and pass on that traditional treasure to the next generation.

The treasure of Traditional Liturgy includes a beautiful jewel: Gregorian Chant. St Pius X says that it “is the Chant proper to the Roman Church, the only chant she has inherited from the ancient fathers, which she has jealously guarded for centuries in her liturgical codices, which she directly proposes to the faithful as her own, which she prescribes exclusively for some parts of the liturgy, and which the most recent studies [the work of Dom Guéranger at Solesmes] have so happily restored to their integrity and purity. On these grounds Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for sacred music.” Gregorian Chant is not only for the choir – by the grace of God, we have a very nice choir in Osaka – but also for all the faithful: St Pius X himself says so: “Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times.”

 

Now you may have recognised in this passage of St Pius X a theme which modernists often stress: “active participation.” But let us remember the context: “active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.” This is a context of faith and adoration, a context of fidelity to the solemn prayer of the Church, not at all a context of creativity, of changing everything, of self-expression of the ministers, of secularisation.

That passage of St Pius X is implicitly quoted in Vatican II, and Pope Francis refers to that passage in his recent Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi. However, for the modernists active participation leads to lay-people taking over sacred functions reserved to the priest, such as the reading of the Epistle or Gospel, or even more importantly the distribution of Holy Communion; it has led to a great neglect of silent adoration in many places and introduction of much modern music, with great disregard for the principles laid down by St Pius X in that motu proprio quoted above.

In that Apostolic Letter, Pope Francis wants the “rediscovery of a theological understanding of the Liturgy and of its importance in the life of the Church”. Some of what he says would be true if it is applied to the Traditional Liturgy, but it becomes twisted and visibly untrue when applied to the new liturgy. Indeed, in order to “rediscover the beauty of the truth of the Christian celebration”, one ought to return to the Traditional Liturgy. For the faithful to “grow in a knowledge of the theological sense of the Liturgy”, they need the Traditional Liturgy.

To give but two examples: in the Traditional Canon, there are 25 signs of the Cross. Just after the Consecration, the priest says “hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam – the pure victim, the holy victim, the immaculate victim” and makes the sign of the cross each time he says “hostia – victim”: this makes is very clear that what is on the altar now is really the “pure victim of the Cross, the holy victim of the Cross, the Immaculate Victim of the Cross.” The bond between the Mass and the Cross, the unity of the one Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and on the altar is thus very manifest. All this is done away in the Novus Ordo; even the first “eucharistic prayer” that has kept the words has not kept the signs of the Cross, and in their translations (at least until not long ago) they had even very badly translated that passage. Of those 25 signs of the Cross in the traditional Canon, only one remains: that is 95% gone! And the last one is only at the words “benedixit – he blessed”: it has become a common blessing and has lost its depth of theological meaning of the unity of the Mass and the Cross.

Another example: in the Traditional Mass there were ten genuflexions, in the new there are only three left -  Every single time the priest would touch the Blessed Sacrament, he would genuflect before and after. These genuflexions very clearly manifest the faith in the real presence of our Lord and offer Him due adoration. Communion for the faithful was on the tongue only and kneeling down. Indeed St Augustine says: “let no one eat that Flesh unless he first adore… Not only we do not sin if we adore, but we sin if we do not adore.” This is faith of the Church, clearly manifested by the Traditional Liturgy. Now in the New Mass, there are only three genuflexion left for the priest – Now here again that is 70% gone. And communion in the hand and without genuflexion is very common.when they are not completely omitted by the celebrant, which oftens. Now here again that is 70% gone. See how the reformers have stripped the Mass of the profession of Faith, and they think they can get away with that by saying that there still remains a few. But, if you so reduce the spiritual food from the faithful, even if there remains “a little”, don’t be surprised if many fail and fall by spiritual starvation: that little is not enough.

There would be so many other examples of important points of faith that have been so much taken away, hidden on rare occasions, replaced by empty words, etc. Just one more example: the post-communion of the Mass of the Sacred Heart beautifully says: “May thy holy mysteries, O Lord Jesus, give us this fervour by which, having tasted the suavity of Thy most meek Heart, we may learn to despise earthly things and love the heavenly ones.” Now despising earthly thing is a theme that modernists do not like, that worldly people do not like, so the new Mass has suppressed that prayer: they no longer ask to despise earthly things and at the same time they no longer ask to love the heavenly ones! They replaced it by asking for fraternal charity: a horizontal petition in place of a vertical petition, in a certain way. This is very meaningful of the liturgical reform.

So, it is clear that to “grow in a knowledge of the theological sense of the Liturgy”, in order to “rediscover the beauty of the truth of the Christian celebration”, one ought to return to the Traditional Liturgy. Now there is an important truth, manifest in Liturgy, which Pope Francis remind us, quoting St Augustine: it is that the holy Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Unity of the Church: “O mystery of piety! O sign of unity! O bond of charity!” This indeed has been the constant teaching of the Church. In the same sermon, St Augustine says: “our Lord Jesus Christ has pointed our minds to His body and blood in those things, which from being many are reduced to some one thing. For a unity is formed by many grains forming together; and another unity is effected by the clustering together of many berries.” One can even say that the  mystery of the Cross is vividly manifested by the fact that the many grains of wheat are crushed into one dough and the many grapes are crushed into one drink. And this is what our Lord chose to transform into His Body and Blood, because His Church is composed of many faithful who by the Cross are made one in Him.

St Paul himself says: “For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread”. We are one mystical Body of Christ, all we who participate in His one Eucharistic Body.

Pope Francis mentions this, because he would like to restore a better union in the Church, where he can see division. But He does it the wrong way: division was introduced by the novelties of Vatican II and of the new Liturgy, which led to so many innovations that really shattered the beautiful unity which the Traditional Mass had realised in the Church prior to Vatican II. That traditional unity can be restored if the Traditional Mass is restored!

But the Pope wants to suppress it and force everyone to take the new Mass. Now, by their fruits you shall know them. In the past fifty years, the fruits of the New Mass have been fruits of division and destruction; it has spread the poison of the errors of Vatican II all over the world: if they had not touched the liturgy, these errors would have touched only a few theologians but not all the faithful all over the world. Through the new liturgy their poison was spread everywhere, leaving souls languid and without strength to resist the assaults of the modern world. Indeed, often one hears the blame for the current situation of the church put on the world; but should we not be stronger than the world by the grace of Christ? The vices of the world have invaded the Church because the faithful were fed with a “bastard Mass” as Archbishop Lefebvre said: a liturgy that was the fruit of the adulterous union of the church with the world. Indeed the world rejects the Cross, and the new Liturgy in many ways has rejected the Cross as I have explained above.

The motive given by the Pope is that the bishops at Vatican II wanted this new Mass and have approved it. This is a lie: in many ways the new liturgy is against what was explicitly said at Vatican II, for instance Vatican II restated Latin as the standard language, Gregorian Chant was to be given the first place, etc. When the first draft of the new liturgy was presented to the synod of bishops in 1967, they rejected it: this proves beyond doubt that it was not what they were looking for in 1964. But the innovators had put a few time-bombs in the text of Vatican II, which they themselves later used extensively to overthrow the antique liturgy. But by their fruits you shall know them. They were hoping their reform would have brought a new Pentecost in the Church, but rather a mantle of death spread far and wide: priests leaving their holy vocation, religious abandoning their vows, many falling away from the faith into all kinds of protestant sects, many more giving up the regular attendance on Sundays and holidays, many more giving up the practice of the Commandments and using contraception, even unnatural vices being positively approved, etc. And this is only the beginning of the list of the bitter fruits of the reform!

But, by the grace of God, the traditional Mass continued. Archbishop Lefebvre was the instrument of Divine Providence for this. And more and more younger people are searching for authenticity and find it precisely in fidelity to Tradition. The good fruits of those who return to Tradition are multiplying and the modernists feel threatened by this development of tradition. The motu proprio Traditionis custodes and the recent Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi with their effort to completely suppress the Traditional Liturgy are part of that struggle of a dying generation of modernists.

The guarantee of the future is with God, who is Eternal. “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same for ever”. If we are with the past of the Church, we are with the future of the Church, we are truly faithful to the Church even today. From the beginning the true faith was marked by that fidelity to Tradition: “tradidi quod et accepi – I have passed on to you that which I have received” St Paul says that and about the faith and about the liturgy.

So let us ask all the Saints in Heaven, and especially the Virgin most faithful for that grace of fidelity to the Church and her holy liturgy so that we may be admitted to the heavenly celebration of the Wedding feast of the King, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Father François Laisney