No one wants to see the mass celebrated poorly. However, let me give you something from the saints themselves. None of our dear saints would ever trade one mass that has an abuse or a violation of rubrics for another mass that is forbidden by Church law.
The solution is to resolve the problems with those priests and parishes that have introduced nonsense into the liturgy. It is never a solution of a saint to resort to a mass where the priest is prohibited by the highest law in the Church from celebrating it, yet he flaunts the law. He may do so, because he truly believes that this is in the best interest of souls. However, the great saints of the church have taught us, by the example of their own lives, the best thing for souls is to live under the aegis of the Church, no matter how much one has to suffer.
I put before you a man like our Holy Father Francis. Can you honestly say that you can find a man as holy and as devoted to Christ’s Gospel and to his Church among the members of the SSPX as Francis of Assisi? You and I know that is not the case.
Go back to the 13th century when the Roman liturgy was in chaos, when priests lived with concubines or little boys. Go back to the time when popes engaged in frivolous wars in the name of faith, but in reality it was to fill the pockets of kings who offered the Church their protection. Look at a time when the clergy could hardly read and write, when the only educated churchmen were the Benedictine monks and the Dominican Friars.
Yet, Brother Francis explicitly commanded his brothers and the laity of his day to submit to the authority of the clergy, even when that authority was in error, because Christ is not pleased by our being right. Christ is pleased by our obedience to God and man. He reminded his fellow Christians of his day that Pilate was also wrong, yet Christ submitted to him, because it was his Father’s will.
Finally, he commanded his brothers, under pain of eternal damnation, never to utter a single word against the Church, against their superiors or against any member of the clergy, but to recall that they were greater sinners than those whom they considered to be abusing the liturgy, the people, their office and teaching error. He commanded his brothers to be the smallest of men and to assume the most insignificant roles in the Church and to submit to everything that the Church and the clergy imposed on them, good or bad, as long as they did not ask them to sin. Because only when one submits one’s will is one truly poor. The last thing that a man owns is not his money, his property or even his good name. The last thing that a man owns is his will. Unless a man become poor, he cannot enter heaven. Therefore, the ultimate act of poverty is to submit to the will of God by remaining faithful and obedient to legitimate Church authority.
One has to make a choice, either Church authority is legitimate and one disobeys or one denies the legitimacy of that authority and subscribes to sedevacantism. But one cannot claim that the Church’s authority, popes, bishops and pastors are legitimate and then claim that one has the right to disregard them. Francis once said that it has nothing to do with whether or not the bishop or the pope is infallible. It has to do with the fact that the bishop and the pope have been handed the power to govern and they have received this power from Christ himself.
You ask, what are the faithful to do? I say to you, take the good example of the great saints who lived through worse and more turbulent times than our own. Look at the fidelity of Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and ask yourself if you can top their holiness by supporting those who disobey. As yourself, did they ever disobey? Would they do so today? Someone like Mother Teresa is not that old. She just died a few years ago. She lived through the turbulence of the 20th century. Did she ever question? Did she ever doubt? Did she ever look for an alternative mass or priest outside of those who are in full communion with the Church? Can you top her holiness? She was actually very sad at the disobedience of Archbishop Lefebvre and she prayed for him until her death. If she was able to achieve holiness that so closely resembles that of Christ and do so within this Church with all of the nonsense and all of the changes, why can’t we do the same? Is it only about rituals?
Mother Teresa, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna, Dominic, Anthony and Ignatius would tell you it’s not. It’s about great love, great obedience, great humility, great trust in Providence and great effort on each person’s part to be the holy man or woman that God calls them to be. God does not call us to be holy through disobedience.
I truly believe that we, including me, are a very arrogant generation. We believe that we can achieve great holiness, even higher than these noble souls, by doing things our way. Yet, when I look at these people and the world in which they lived and the crises of faith all around them and yet they persevered without having to go outside of the boundaries of obedience, I feel that we’re looking for the easy way. It is very easy to be holy in a chapel where the mass is perfectly celebrated and everyone is perfectly behaved, because the only people who attend at those of like mind. It is much more challenging to be prayerful, silent, contemplative, and charitable in a parish church filled with lepers. Yet, that’s where real virtue is achieved, among the lepers, the harlots, the thieves and the dregs of the Church. That’s how these men and women reached heights of sanctity that most of us can only dream of. They struggled to pray and worship. They did not look for the parish or chapel where prayer and worship came easily. They remained and faced the difficulties and they triumphed.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
I don’t like saying either that it seems weird the liturgy is messed around with (which is breaking law no?) but is usually ignored when a group who is trying to fight abuses is dealt with by being slammed with breaking laws too (and is not ignored and even labeled radical!) I am just wowed that the SSPX were excommunicated (at one point) while someone like Father Michael Pfleger is kept active and even given rewards. Doesn’t it seem wrong to you all?