Consoling meditations for the faithful
in times of persecution, schism or heresy
by
M. Demaris,
an exiled catholic priest who died for the faith in 1803;
followed by a short diocesan letter of Mgr. de Marboeuf.
Reprinted in Beauchêne 1969 by M. Fazilleau
translated by Emilia Vaiciulis
The faithful, seeing the imminent
danger of being left without priests asked M. Demaris to draw up a Rule
of Conduct for future times, and this he did:
My dear children,
in the midst of the snares and perils of fortune, and being left at the
mercy of your passions, you ask me to provide guidelines for your
conduct. It will console you to know that your guideline is Jesus
Christ Himself, the model of all Christians. We can take His conduct as
a norm of how to behave in these difficult times. The Pharisees said to
Him one day: “Go away!” Herod wants to kill you”. Whereupon he replied:
“Go and tell that fox: behold, today and tomorrow I am to continue
casting out devils and doing works of mercy. It is on the third day
that I am to reach my consummation. But, today and tomorrow and the
next day I must go on my journeys; and there is no room for a prophet
to meet his death except at Jerusalem.” (Luke 13, 31-33).
All you hear, all you see frightens you, my children; but be consoled:
the will of God is being done. Though your days are numbered, His
Providence watches over you. Have no fear of those who are more like
wild beasts then man. Consider them as nothing but instruments chosen
by Heaven to bring about God’s holy will. They are like a wild sea the
waves of which may be towering up mena-cingly, poised to strike, yet
which never exceed the boundaries set for them.
The present Revolution like a powerful whirlwind the alarming reports
of which we hear on all sides, represents the menaces of Herod. Don’t
let these deter you from your good works or diminish your confidence in
God. Don’t allow them to tarnish the brilliance of your virtues, which
you must continue to practice. They unite you to Jesus Christ. It is He
Who is your model and the threats of Herod did not influence the course
of His destiny.
I know that you risk imprisonment and even death. Let me repeat to you
what St. Peter said to the first Christians: “It is a credit to a man
when he bears with undeserved ill treatment for the sake of God. If you
do wrong and are punished for it, you cannot boast of being patient; it
is the patience of innocent sufferers that wins credit in God’s sight.
Indeed, you are bound to follow this example of Christ. He suffered for
our sakes, you want to follow in His footsteps. He did no wrong, no
deceit was found on His lips; He was ill-spoken of and spoke no
evil in return: suffered, and did not threaten vengeance. He gave
Himself up into the hands of injustice”. (II Peter I,19-24).
The disciples of Jesus Christ must be loyal to God, their country, and
submissive to and respectful of the authorities. They are to be men of
principle, with clear consciences, whose only thought is to fulfil the
will of God. They must not flee persecution like cowards. When one is
inflamed with the love of the cross, one boldly embraces it and is even
glad to do so. Persecution fans our personal union with Jesus Christ.
It can break out at any moment, not always being spectacular or with
the same degree of merit for you. If God does not call you to
martyrdom, you can be like the illustrious confessors of which St.
Cyprian said: “Though they did not die at the hands of the executioner,
they received the palm of martyrdom because they were prepared for it”.
The conduct of St Paul as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Ch.
XXI) is a model for our own behaviour and is based on the example of
Jesus Christ. Whilst at Cesarea going to Jerusalem, he learnt that
persecutions were in store for him. The Christians implored him to
avoid them, but he believed that if he was called on to suffer
crucifixion like Jesus Christ, he was ready to do the will of God. His
reply to them was: “What do you mean by lamenting and so crushing my
spirit? I am ready to meet prison and death in Jerusalem for the love
of Jesus Christ.” (Acts,XXI).
These ought to be your dispositions too, my dear children. Faith should
be our shield, we should be sustained by hope, and charity should guide
all our actions. We should be as simple as doves and as cunning as
serpents at all times and places, but even more so when we are called
on to suffer for the Lord Jesus.
Here I shall remind you of a saying of St. Cyprian which could guide
our actions and fuel our pity in hard moments. This illustrious martyr
counsels: We should not go out seeking occasions of bearing witness to
the Faith, nor should we flee them especially, either. If God has them
in order for us, we are to hope all from his mercy. What God rather
asks of us is a humble confession of our Faith rather than a bold
exhibition of it.” Our strength must be in our humility. This maxim
invites us to meditate on the strength, the patience and even joy with
which the saints suffered. St. Paul tells us of his conviction that,
when we are full of faith evils only affect us exteriorly. After a
short combat we receive the crown of victory. Only the just man can
appreciate this consoling truth which might even be fulfilled in our
day… Let us not be surprised if we see what St. Cyprian
personally experienced during the first persecution: most of the
faithful ran to martyrdom with joy!
“Love God, fear Him alone”. This characterises the small number of the
elect and the martyrs. This love and fear detached Christians from the
world, attaching them to God and His holy law. In order to maintain
this love and fear in your hearts too, you must constantly watch and
pray and perform good works. Be inspired by the edifying examples of
the first Christians. Familiarise yourselves with the doings of
the confessors of the faith in the Acts of the Apostles,
glorifying those first Christians…
The more you are deprived of the ministry of priests who could feed
your souls with the Word of Life, the more beneficial the practices
described above will be for you. You lament the absence of priests, so
necessary for your spiritual welfare. I understand your loss: it seems
to you that you are now abandoned to your own resources. But, if you
look at it with the eyes of faith, it is this very desolation
which is profitable for you. Now the faithful are united by Faith, but
if we think about this truth, we find that physical absence does not
break this unity because it cannot break the bonds of Faith. On the
contrary Faith is deepened by it because it does not depend on any
sensible perception. Believers who live only according to their faith
live by it.
If the Faith united you to priests you respected in the past, be
consoled: their absence purifies and vivifies the bonds of your
friendship! They are present to us by faith and our spiritual
relationship continues despite the chains or miles which may separate
us. With Faith our eyes become so piercing that we are enabled to see
our friends wherever they might be, whether at the other end of the
world, or even if they have died. If we have Faith all are present to
us; by it we can penetrate the inmost recesses of the earth or
into the highest reaches of Heaven. Faith transcends the senses. It is
out of the reach of men. Who can rob us of our memories? Who can
prevent us from in spirit representing ourselves before God in
the company of our loved ones and praying for our daily bread in union
with them? But, my children, I see it is not enough for you to console
yourselves about the absence of your priests, or to wipe away your
tears at considering their chains. Their physical absence deprives you
of the sacraments and of spiritual consolations. You cannot carry out
your usual practices of piety. So you become alarmed, thinking you
cannot keep your devotion up being left to yourselves! However well
founded your fear is, don’t forget that God is still your Father. If He
permits this privation of ordained priests appointed to dispense the
sacred species and Mysteries he does not close up the channels of grace
for that!
I now propose to discuss them with you - the only resource you have, in
order to purify your souls. Please read me in the same spirit as I have
written: our only aim being to have the Truth and to achieve
salvation through self-denial, by deepening our love of God and by
being entirely submitted to His will.
I don’t have to remind you of the efficacy of the sacraments. You know
of the obligation to go to confession (Easter-duty) to purify
yourselves of your sins. Dispensers or ‘channels’ of these graces are
necessary-priests! But in our present situation we are without a Cult,
without an altar, a Sacrifice or a priest. We can only look up to
Heaven; however there are no more priests, mediators between God and
man… I say-do not allow yourselves to be crushed by this. Our Faith
tells us that we have a Divine Mediator – Jesus Christ. He knows our
needs, He crowns our fidelity. He considers us with His almighty,
merciful eyes. We are like that paralytic who had been lying at the
edge of the pool for thirtyeight years. Christ did not ask someone to
lower him into the pool in order to heal him. He told him to take up
his bed and walk!….
If the circumstances of life vary for the faithful, their obligations
must needs vary too. Previously, we could be compared to those servants
who had received a hundred talents. We were able to prac-tice our
religion unmolested. Nowadays our only talent is our heart. But if we
multiply it, we shall be rewarded as though we had received more
talents... God is just. He does not ask the impossible of us; but
because He is just He also expects fidelity from us as far as this is
in our means. Though very highly respectful of Church laws regarding
Penance I am obliged to tell you that there are cir-cumstances where
these laws not apply. For your instruction and consolation I shall tell
you what these attenuating circumstances are, so that you will not be
erroneously guided by your own subjective views on the matter but
only by the Holy Ghost.
The circumstances dispensing us from Church laws are those where God
intervenes directly to operate our salvation without the mediation of
His priests. God can save us by Himself if He wishes it.
He is the Source of life and He Himself supplants all the usual
means he has established to work out our salvation, His mercy
accommodating itself to our needs. He is a tender Father ineffably
rescuing His children when abandoned, they seek after and sigh
only for Him. If in the course of our lives some of us have neglected
the least of the means given to us by Holy Mother the Church for our
sanctification, we would have been considered ungrateful children; but
if we are going to think that in today’s extraordinary circumstances we
suddenly can’t do even without the greatest of these means we would be
forgetting and insulting divine Providence putting us to the test and
which, whilst permitting us to be deprived in one way, compensates us
for this with His own Spirit.
… My dear children, in order to set up your Rule of Conduct quite
precisely, I shall examine the circumstances you are in by the light of
Faith and provide examples from the history of the Church to illustrate
what I have to say and console you by showing you how you can apply
these examples in your own lives.
It is an article of Faith that the first and most necessary of all
sacraments is Baptism. It is the portal of salvation and eternal life.
However the desire or the intention to receive Baptism in certain
circumstances suffices for you to receive the merit of this sacrament.
The catechumens who were caught unawares by the persecutions only
received it in the blood they shed for the Faith. The grace of the
sacrament was in their case granted to them in their gratuitous
confession of the Faith; and they were received into the Mystical body
of Christ by the Holy Ghost, the common link uniting all members to the
Head.
That is the way the martyrs saved their souls; the shedding of their
blood was their Baptism. Similarly, all those being instructed in the
mysteries of our Faith will be saved if they desire to receive
them. Such is the teaching of the Church, founded on what St. Peter
said: the water of Baptism cannot be refused to those who have received
the Holy Ghost.
When we have the spirit of Jesus Christ e.g. when for love of Him we
face persecution, are deprived of all help, are bound in chains or led
to the scaffold – then we shall have received all sacraments in the
Cross. The instrument of our Redemption contains all that is necessary
for our salvation. The Tradition of the Church from its earliest times
confirms this dogma of the Faith. The catechumens who desired to
receive the sacraments, the confessors and martyrs were saved
without Baptism and without any of the sacraments when they were in the
impossibility of receiving them. Hence, it is easy to conclude that it
is not necessary to receive any sacraments in such conditions. This
conclusion is an article of Faith.
St. Ambrose considered the pious emperor Valentinian a saint though he
died without Baptism, which he had desired but been unable to receive.
It is the desire, the will to receive, which saves us. The holy doctor
of the Church continues: “In this case he who does not receive Baptism
from the hands of men, piously receive it from the hands of God, from
Jesus Christ.” What this great saint says of Baptism applies to all the
sacraments, to all liturgical ceremonies and prayers in present times.
When we cannot confess to a priest, but have al the right dispositions
for the reception of sacrament of Penance, firmly and constantly
desiring to receive it, we hear Jesus Christ Who, touched by our
obvious faith, saying to us what He had previously said to the woman
who had sinned: “Go in peace. Many sins are forgiven you because you
have loved much.”
St. Leo says that all apostolic authority is included in the love of
justice. This is the teaching of the Church. This maxim may be applied
to all who, like us, are deprived of priests by persecutions which have
dispersed or imprisoned the true priests of Jesus Christ, worthy of the
Faith and devotion of the faithful. This maxim applies above all if we
are caught in a persecution. Here, the Cross of Jesus Christ will
support us if we support it. Instead of reasoning about this, let us
listen to what saints had to say.
Writing to St Cyprian, the confessors and martyrs of Africa openly
admitted that, after having confessed the name of Jesus Christ in the
tribunals, they returned with pure, clean consciences. They did not say
that they had gone there with pure, unsullied consciences, but that
they returned so from them. Nothing purifies like the cross!
In the midst of extenuating trials and circumstances, the common lot of
the saints, if we find we cannot confess our sins to priests, let us
confess them to God. My children, I am aware of your finer feelings and
hesitations, and even scruples of some of you about this. Forget them!
From now on, your faith and love of the cross must increase. Say to
yourselves (and let your actions proclaim the same) what St. Paul had
to say: ”who will separate us from the love of Jesus Christ?” (Romans
8,35). There is one great manifest truth in what I have told you,
really capable of consoling and encouraging you. Your confession is a
real confession before God and menn.
If confession must precede absolution, in your case your conduct must
precede the graces of holiness and justice which God will then dispense
to you. Your confession must be public and continual. St. Augustin
assures us that confession is necessary because it includes the
renouncement of sin; but in our case, we renounce sin so publicly and
so solemnly that it is known everywhere, and this public denunciation
of sin brought about because we do not have access to a priest, is much
more meritorious than an individual sacramental confession made in
secret! It is more edifying and gives more satisfaction to God. A
private confession of sins to a priest does not cost us so much. The
confession we must make today, however, involves the general sacrifice
of all our goods, of our freedom, our rest, our reputation - and may be
even our life!
The particular confession to a priest is useful to one person alone:
but our public confession in these times is profitable to our fellow
men and is beneficial for the Church as a whole. Despite our
unworthiness, God is gracious enough to show the world that it is an
enormous crime to transgress Truth and Justice, and the greater our
sufferings, the more patiently we bear them, the more our voices will
be heard. Our example will preach to the faithful that it is worse than
they think to do the evil requir-ed of us. It is not just some sins we
confess. We confess the Truth, a more noble and necessary confession in
the present circumstances. We do not confess our sins in secret: we
confess the Truth in public! We may be persecuted, but Truth can hardly
be kept captive, and we have this consolation, in the midst of the
injustices we suffer, that the Truth of God cannot be chained by
injustice, as the apostle of the nations says, and we also have the
merit of giving a good example to our brothers! Finally, if we cannot
confess our sins, the Church does so for us.
These are the admirable rules Providence has for us, permitting trials
so we can gain merits, and to make us reflect more seriously
about the use we have made of the sacraments. The habit and the
facility we had before of confessing our sins often went
accompanied by lukewarmness. In these times, however,
lacking confessors, we are left to ourselves, and so our fervour
increases. Let us consider this privation as fasting for our souls and
as a preparation for receiving the baptism of penance which, so
ardently desired, would become an even more profitable nourishment for
our souls.
Our conduct, which is our confession before men and our accusation
before God, should have as little as possible of the usual defects and
faults we’d normally include in our ordinary confessions, especially
spiritual pride. What I have told you should more than suffice to
reassure you; however it could be that you still need some
reassurances about your anxieties and scruples, caused by your delicate
consciences in having to become judges and directors of your own souls.
I sense your deep concern about this, my children: but when one
confides in God, one does not do so by halves! It would be a lack of
confidence in Him to begin to consider the inefficiency and
imperfection, according to the order of grace, of the means he chooses
to maintain. Try to rely on the wisdom, maturity and experience
of any instruments of His the Lord sends you to counsel you,
especially if they recommend certain efficacious practices enabling you
to avoid evil, do good, and advance in virtue. These practices may not
have a sacramental character, but they would nevertheless result from a
special light and understanding granted to these ‘instruments of the
Lord’ He sends to you. Your spiritual advisor or director could well be
a virtuous, zealous and charitable friend. Pious people did not just
use Confession alone for seeking advice or to be instructed. They had
spiritual talks with people noted for their holy, virtuous lives
too. I exhort you to do the same: but the greatest charity must
prevail in such spiritual friendships. God will bless them and you will
receive all the lights you need. But even if this means were out of
your reach, rely on the mercies of God: He will not abandon you. You
will hear the Holy Ghost whispering to you in your own hearts,
enflaming them with holy inspirations and urging you on to fulfil
your holy destinies.
I shall be precise on this point. You have many questions, but be
patient. I shall answer them all in the rest of my letter. Everything
must wait its turn, especially in a subject as delicate as this one,
where one needs to be very exact… I shall now continue talking to you
as if I were talking to myself.
If you are too far away to attend mass, deprived of all priestly
ministry, the only mediator left to you is Jesus Christ Himself. So it
is to Him we should turn in all our needs; it is before His supreme
majesty that we should reveal the state of our consciences without any
self-love. Whilst examining the good and evil we have done, we should
thank Him for His graces and accuse ourselves of our sins and offences…
After that, we should pray to receive His pardon and to know what His
holy will is for us. (However, in our hearts we should still have the
sincere desire of confessing our sins to a priest as soon as we could).
My children, this is what I mean by ‘confessing to God’. After such a
well made confession, God Himself will grant absolution! The Gospel
teaches us this in giving us the example of the publican. Humbling
himself before God, he returned justified, because the hallmark of
absolution is justice, which cannot be bound, because it itself has the
property of loosening from the bonds of sin. So, even if we are
completely isolated, we know what we should do. Our obligations are set
out in Holy Scripture.
All which pertains to God is holy: when we suffer for the truth our
sufferings are united with those of Jesus Christ, Who particularly
honours us by granting us a special resemblance to Him on His Cross.
This grace is the greatest good a mortal can have in his life…
And so it is that in all the painful circumstances which deprive us of
the sacraments, the Cross, if carried with the right dispositions, is
the source of the remission of our sins, just as it was the source of
the remission of the sins of the whole human race when it was carried
by Jesus Christ long ago. To doubt this truth is to insult our
crucified Lord, for it means a lack of appreciation of the virtues and
merits of the Cross. Now tell me: is it possible for the good thief to
have obtained the pardon of his sins, whilst the catholic who abandons
all for his God does not? The Fathers of the Church noted that the good
thief was a criminal when he was attached to the cross; this was to
show the faithful all they could hope for from this cross when they
embrace it and remain attached to it for Truth and Justice. Jesus
Christ entered Heaven from the Cross after He had suffered and died on
it. As we are His disciples, He is our model. Let us suffer like Him
and receive the heritage which He has won for us through the Cross. But
in order to be sanctified by the Cross we must not belong to ourselves
but completely to God. We must also imitate the virtues of Jesus Christ
in our conduct. In times like this it does not suffice to be inflamed
by divine love, to repose our heads on His bosom like St. John. We need
to serve Him with perseverance and fortitude on the Cross of Calvary.
We may have to make our confession to God from there, and if we cannot
receive absolution from the hands of a priest, we shall get it from the
hands of Jesus Christ. His adorable hands seem to weigh so heavily for
nature, but are so light for those who love Him! These hands are
extended over us from morning till night to fill us with all sorts of
blessings if we do not push them away ourselves. There is no blessing
like that of Jesus crucified when He blesses His children from the
Cross.
In these times, the sacrament of Penance for us is like the well of
Jacob, whose water is excellent and salutary, but very deep. Deprived
of everything, we cannot draw water from it to quench our thirst, there
are even guards to prevent our access to it… Such is our lot. Let us
deem the behaviour of our persecutors as a punishment for our sins! It
is certain that if we approached this well with faith, we would find
Jesus Christ talking to the Samaritan woman. But let us not loose
courage! Let us go down to the valley of Bethulia, where there are
several wells to be found which are not guarded and where we can quench
our thirst in peace. May Jesus Christ live in our hearts! May the Holy
Ghost enflame them with love and we shall then find this source of
living water, supplanting Jacob’s well, in ourselves! When we confess
to God, Jesus Christ Himself as sovereign Pontiff ineffably does what
in any other time He would have done through the ministry of priests.
This confession has an advantage that no-one can take from us: it is
from our hearts that Jesus Christ continually sees to us! We should
confess like this at all times, in all places and on all possible
occasions. It is indeed worthy of admiration and of our gratitude to
see that all the world does to separate us from God and His Church only
bring us closer to them.
Confession should not only be a remedy for past sins; it should help
preserve us from future sins. If we seriously reflect on this double
efficacy of the sacrament of Penance we would really have a lot to be
humiliated for and to sigh about! And the less we progressed in
virtue, the greater our humilia-tion and confusion would be, especially
if we remained the same before and after our confessions! But we can
now make up for these defects arising from too great a reliance on
absolution and from a lack of depth in our examinations of conscience!
Now obliged to groan before God, the faithful soul is more watchful as
to where it offended God; there, at the feet of the Saviour, profoundly
sorrowful and repentant, the soul silently remains, speaking only by
its tears, like Mary Magdalena in the Gospels. It sees its misery on
one hand, and God’s goodness on the other. It annihilates itself before
His Majesty until He dispels its sorrows by a glance. It is then
that divine light fully illuminates its contrite and humiliated heart
right to its inner core.
May this confession directly to God become a daily habit with you; may
it be short, but heartfelt, and at the end of the day. Make a general
confession in this way from time to time as well. The first fruit to be
gained from such a practice, apart from the remission of your sins,
will be to know yourselves and God better. The second fruit is, that
you are thus always prepared to make a sacramental confession to a
priest, ordained to dispense the mercies of God, if such an occasion
arises. My children, I think I have said what it was my duty to say
regarding you and the sacrament of Penance. Now I shall go over your
privation of the Blessed Eucharist and following that, deal with all
the other sub-jects you asked me about.
The Blessed Eucharist, the sacrament of love, is full of sweetness, and
there were many advantages to be gained from it when you were able to
receive it: now, that you are deprived of it because you are defending
Truth and Justice, your advantages are – still the same; for who would
have dared to approach the Holy Table if Jesus Christ had not made this
a precept, and if the Church, desiring us to be fortified by the Bread
of Life had not invited us to partake of it through the voices of its
priests in order that we might be clothed in the nuptial robes of
grace? But if we compare that obedience for the sake of which we are
now deprived of the Hoy Eucharist to that which invited us to it, it
will be easy to gauge our present merits.
Abraham obeyed when he set about to immolate his son and he obeyed when
he did not do so: but his obedience was far more meritorious when he
took up his knife than when he replaced it in its sheath. Similarly, we
obey when we approach the Holy Table; but in being deprived of the
Eucharist - we immolate ourselves. We thirst after justice and deprive
ourselves of the Blood of the Lamb, which alone can quench our thirst;
we sacrifice our own life insofar as this depends on us. The sacrifice
of Abraham lasted but an instant – an angel arrested the knife.
Our sacrifice – voluntary - occurs every day and is renewed each
time we submit ourselves and adore the hand of God which has separated
us from the altars. It is an advantage to be separated from the
Eucharist in order to raise the standard of the Cross for the cause of
Jesus Christ and the glory of His Church. Consider this, my children,
Jesus Christ, after having instituted Himself in the Holy Eucharist
went straight to die for us. This should also be the way the Christian
behaves in times of persecution: the Cross follows the Eucharist.
Therefore, may the love of the Eucharist not separate us from the love
of the Cross! It is a glorious tribute to the Gospels and a very
perfect way to imitate them to leave the Cenacle and to go up to
Calvary. Yes, I am not afraid to say it: when the storm of the malice
of men breaks out against Truth and Justice, it is more advantageous
for the faithful to suffer for Jesus Christ than to partake of the
Sacred Species through Holy Communion. It seems to me I can hear the
Saviour saying: “Ah! Do not fear to be separated from My Table in order
to confess My Name! It is quite a rare grace I extend to you. By this
humiliation, this privation, you can glorify Me by making reparation
for all sacrilegious holy communions. Be aware of what this grace
means: you can do nothing without Me.
And now I am putting a means in your hands of your rendering Me the
same as I have done for you, and to repay Me magnificently for my great
gifts for you! This is the means I give you to do so, and know that
when you are separated from it in order to be faithful to My service,
you can then render to My Truth what you have received from My charity.
I could not have given you anything greater, and you are unable to give
Me anything greater either. By this grace I have given you, your
gratitude is able to equal the greatness of the Gift I have given you.
Console yourselves if I do not ask you to shed your blood like the
martyrs. You have Mine to take is place; each time they stop you from
drinking it I shall credit it to you as if you had shed your blood for
Me: and Mine is infinitely more precious.”
It is in such a way that we can find the Eucharist even when suffering
its privation. On the other hand, who can separate us from Jesus Christ
and His Church in Holy Communion, in approaching the altars in an even
more efficacious way because it is based on faith, therefore more
spiritual and more removed from the senses. It is spiritual Communion I
refer to. I call on all the faithful, wherever they may be, to make
them. This manner of Communion was known to you even at the time when
you could approach the Holy Table: you know its advantages and how to
go about making it, so I shall pass over this here. But I shall briefly
reveal to you what Holy Scripture and the annals of Church History
offer in way of reflection on the privation of the Mass and of the
necessity of a continual Sacrifice for the faithful in times of
persecution. Be particularly attentive, my children to the principles I
shall remind you of: they are meant for your edification.
Nothing happens without the will of God whether we are able to attend
mass or are deprived of it, we should be equally submissive to the
divine will. In al circumstances, let us be worthy of the God we serve.
The worship we owe to Jesus Christ is founded on the help He gives us
and on our continual need of His help. The faithful who live isolated
are also bound to worship, though this may not be the liturgical
worship of the past. But, as St Peter and St John testify, as children
of God we participate in the priesthood of Jesus Christ to offer
prayers and vows. If we don’t have the sacred character of ordination
to offer the sacrifice of the Mass on visible altars, we at least have
the hosts. We can sacrifice Jesus Christ to His Father on the visible
altars of our hearts, offering the cult worship of our love. If we are
faithful to this principle, we shall gain the same graces as if we were
actually present at the sacrifice of the mass. Through the bounds of
charity in the Mystical Body we offered in the most perfect manner.
Yes, my children, the faithful without priests are priests and kings
themselves according to St Peter. They offer their sacrifices through
Jesus spiritually present without churches, without priests, with
nothing visible.
There is also the sacrifice of our heart, where the victim must be
consumed by the fire of divine love of the Holy Ghost. According to St.
Clement of Alexandria this means that we must be united to Jesus Christ
by our words, by our actions and in our hearts. We are united to Him by
our words when they are full of truth, by our actions when we are just
and by our hearts, when they are inflamed with charity. Therefore, let
us only speak the truth, loving only the truth, and then we shall
render to God the glory that is His due. When truth shines out in our
words, justice from our actions, when we are submitted to God in our
thoughts and desires, speaking only of Him, praising Him for His gifts,
humbling ourselves for our infidelities – we thereby offer an agreeable
sacrifice to God – one which cannot be taken away from us. The
sacrifice required by God, according to holy king David, was a
repentant heart: “a humble and a contrite heart you will not scorn, o
Lord” (Ps. 50).
I must now consider the Holy Eucharist as a Viaticum. It is possible
you may be deprived of it at the moment of death. I must enlighten you
about how to be prepared for such a painful situation. God loves and
protect us, and He wishes to fortify us with His Body as a Viaticum at
this crucial time. When you consider the future and you see yourself in
agony without Viaticum, without Extreme Unction and with no priestly
assistance, you are stricken to think of your complete abandonment. Be
consoled! Have confidence in God, my children! This most tender of
fathers will grant His graces, blessings and mercies to you in such
abundance in this terrible moment that they will exceed what you would
have received if you were actually assisted by a priest. After all, you
are only deprived of priests because you refused to abandon God! The
feeling of abandonment and dereliction that we dread so much in advance
resembles that of the Saviour on the Cross, when He said to His Father:
“My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” How instructive these
words are! You have the glorious fate of ending your earthly existence
like Jesus Christ – in pain and dereliction.
In His sufferings, dereliction and death, Jesus had still the
profoundest unity with His Father. In yours, you must be united to Him
too, and may your last breath be like His, a desire that the will of
God be accomplished. What I have said about the privation of Viaticum
on one’s deathbed also applies to Extreme Unction. If I die at the
hands of people who not only do not help me, but deride me, the more my
death will resemble that of Jesus Christ and the happier I will be. He
was a spectacle of opprobrium for all the world to see. Crucified at
the hands of His enemies, He was treated like a criminal and died
between two thieves. He was Wisdom itself, but He passed for a fool. He
was Truth and He was taken for a rioter and a seducer. It openly
seemed as if the scribes and the Pharisees had the better of Him,
and they openly rejoiced at it. At last, they were satiated with His
Blood… Jesus Christ had died in terrible torments, humiliated by the
most ignominious of deaths. Children! If at your agony and death your
enemies insult you and hate you, what can you say of the death of Jesus
Christ? Could it be that the angel sent to console Him for the hardness
and coldness of men was also meant to teach us that Heaven will send
consolations when earthly ones fail. Providence had a particular
intention in allowing all the apostles, who were supposed to console
Jesus, fall fast asleep.
We should therefore not be surprised to find we must die without a
priest. Jesus reproached His apostles for sleeping, but not
because they failed to console Him. This was to teach us that if we go
to the garden of Olives, if we climb to Mount Calvary and die alone and
without human help, God still watches over us, consoles us and sees to
all our needs. You Christians who fear the worst, fix your eyes on
Jesus and contemplate Him as your model. This is all I can say. And
after having contemplated Him can you still fear the privation of the
last rites which the Church established to accompany your agony, death
and burial? Think! The reason for which you happen to be suffering and
dying in the first place makes this new privation yet an other source
of glory for you. You have the merits of this last possibility of
resembling Jesus. It was for our edification that Providence permitted
and wished the Pharisees to station guards at the sepulchre to guard
Jesus. Providence also wished that even after His death, He should stay
in the hands of His enemies. This was to teach us that however long,
the enemies lord it over us, we should suffer it with patience and pray
for them.
St. Ignatius, martyr, who longed to be devoured by the wild beasts,
preferred to have them as His sepulchre to the most beautiful mausoleum
in the world. When the first Christians were led to torture, they
did not fret about their agony and burial or what would happen to their
body. Yes, my children, when you abandon yourselves to Jesus during
your lives, you will also do so after your deaths. When Jesus was
on the Cross dying, He saw the women who had followed Him from Galilee
standing at a distance; His Mother, Mary Magdalena and St. John were
standing near the Cross silent, dejected and suffering. This is
typical, my children. Most Christians pity those who are being
persecuted, but they stay at a distance; others, like Mary, stand
by the innocent victim.
I agree with St. Ambrose that the mother of Jesus at the foot of the
Cross knew that her Son would die to redeem the world and wanting to
die with Him to achieve the Redemption, she was not concerned about
irritating the Jews by being present. So, my dear children, whenever
you see someone die, persecuted and in dereliction, imitate Mary and
not the women from Galilee.
Make sure you well understand this truth: a death is all the more
glorious and salutary if it is prompted by virtue: one need never fear
for a member of the Mystical Body who is suffering for the Faith,
though we can comfort Him by our looks and tears. So this, my children,
will, I think, have answered you questions and encouraged your piety.
The principles are for you to meditate on. Never get upset by the
astonishing state of affairs you see around you. Faith has no part with
terror. The number of the elected is always very small, fear only to be
reproached by God for your lack of faith, for not having watched an
hour with Him. I know human nature flinches from suffering, I admit
this, but I still say Faith should dominate and rejoice. God always
does things perfectly. Always bear this in mind. It is the only thought
worthy of you. It was the reaction of the early Christians, when Christ
wrought miracles. But what He does now is by far greater: during this
mortal life he healed bodies; now He heals souls and makes use of
tribulations to complete the number of the elect.
Whatever God has in store for us, let us adore the profundity of His
judgments and put all our confidence in Him. All rise against us, our
friends denounce us and our relatives treat us as strangers! We are
despised for going to mass. Nowadays, few people dare to admit they are
patriotic or law-abiding like us, let alone faithful to God. For this
reason people pretend they do not know us and keep a distance. But if
men abandon us, God helps us. As David said: he delivers the poor and
the weak from the powerful. The universe was created by God. He rules
it and all that happens is dic-tated by Providence. When we think a
persecution is imminent we forget that all it takes is but a few
Christians to revive the Faith in others, like yeast rising the dough.
The extraordinary developments of late, with the multitude raising axes
to topple the reign of God only serves to highlight His power. In every
age there are stories like Gideon’s. Through Gideon, he wished to show
how He was mightier than the Medianites. He told Gideon to dismiss most
of His army leaving only 300 unarmed men, so that God’s victory would
be all the more evident. This small number of Gideon’s soldiers is a
figure of the small number of the elect in our times. My children, to
your sorrowful astonishment you‘ve seen how of all the multitude of
those who were called (almost all of France being Christian then) the
greater part of them like in Gideon’s army was weak and timid and
feeble. So God repudiated them. In His Justice, God only wishes to make
use of those who completely trust in Him. Do not let us be amazed at
the great number of those who leave Him. The Truth finally triumphs, no
matter how small the number of the elect who love it and embrace
it. As for me, like St. Paul I want only one thing. As a child of the
Church I want peace for the Church. But as a soldier of Jesus Christ I
wish to die for it.
Read the works of St. Cyprian, if you can, my children. It is above all
in the first centuries of Christianity that we must seek inspiration
for our own behaviour. It is the holy writings and books of the first
confessors of the Faith that we must have before our eyes to understand
how the martyrs confessed the name of Jesus. It is Truth, Justice and
the Faith- ever venerable, eternal, and unchangeable that we must bear
witness to. Also to the Gospels. Human counsels and lessons, whatever
they may be worth are variable and temporal. The Gospels and the love
of God, however, are eternal. It is by meditating on this difference
that you will clearly see what you owe to God and what you owe to Cesar
for, following Jesus’ example you have to give each of them their due.
The Church at all times and ages agrees on this: there can be nothing
so holy or glorious as to confess the name of Je-sus Christ. But
remember, my children that to confess it in a manner worthy of the
crown we desire to receive, we must be prepared for suffering for when
we suffer the most, we give witness of our sanctity most.
Nothing is more beautiful than the words of St. Cyprian when he praised
Christian virtues as professed by the martyrs of Jesus: “You have
always kept the law of God with a steadfast zeal; you have remained
simple, innocent, and charitable, peace-loving, modest and humble: you
have confessed the Faith with exactitude; you have always been prompt
to succour those in need, with compassion for the poor, constant in
defending the truth and courage in maintaining a firm discipline. And
you crowned your resplendent virtues with a confession of your Faith
through generously accepted sufferings, inspiring your fellow
Christians on to martyrdom and tracing the way for them.
My dear children, though God does not call you to martyrdom or to any
painful confession of His name, I still hope that one day, like the
confessors Celerinus and Aurelius, though you may not be praised for
your constancy, you will be for your humility, for your holiness rather
than for your pains and wounds… Whilst awaiting that happy time, profit
of my counsels and be sustained by my example. May God watch over you.
We can firmly hope either that the persecution comes to an end or
that it is crowned with martyrdom. Whatever the alternative, your
destinies will be accomplished. May the will of God be done because
whatever our fate, his eternal mercies will be with us. I shall finish
now, my dear children, I embrace you and will pray for you; pray for me
and receive my priestly blessing as the pledge of my tenderness
for you and of my faith and sincere resignation in having no other will
than that of God’s.
Demaris
***
Mgr Marboeuf, archbishop of Lyon wrote from exile to the faithful of
his diocese, about the subject of being deprived of religious
help.
Basse-Saxe 6 dec. 1796
My very dear brothers,
If in these unfortunate times your deprived of attending holy mass as
often as you’d like, don’t be discouraged or afraid about that. You are
not losing anything. God will be pleased to see that despite these
privations, you continue to maintain the Faith and hope in Him; He will
hear your prayers at home and your supplications for the restoration of
His cult. He will be touched by them and whilst the time approaches,
designated by His Wisdom, when we shall have more peace, He Himself
will be your shepherd, guide and support. He shall shower abundant
graces into your souls and enough force and constancy to permit you to
resist all the temptations of the enemy. In this time of great famine
of the exterior helps of religion, He will interiorly shower you
with rich blessings. Therefore, remain serene in the sheepfold of such
a good master. Invoke Him with confidence in all your necessities and
be sure that the spiritual nourishment you stand in need of in your
present situation, will never be wanting to you. When these sad times
deprive you of access to the usual channels of grace He has
established, you will receive it directly from the hands of God.”
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