Dear OnePeterFive donors, supporters and readers,
Last month we began the year of Our Lord, MMXXII calling for a deeper spiritual focus in our militancy on behalf of the Old Mass of our forefathers. We called for a true crusade – a fight that is divorced from all earthly attachments, but dedicated to the City of God and Christ the King.
This spiritual militancy is something that all orthodox Catholics can share, including those who attend the New Mass and also lament the loss of faith in the Real Presence. Therefore this present article is something that Trad Catholics can give to their brethren who share our concerns about the abuses in the Novus Ordo and the injustice of Traditionis Custodes. If you would like to become more involved, please contact me: editor [at] onepeterfive.com. The specific requirements for joining in this crusade are listed below. The easiest way to be involved beyond this is to share this article.
The Passion of Christ
This month I want to reflect on a particularly poignant aspect of this reparation and the infinite love of Christ Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. When one sees sacrilege against the Holy of Holies; when one sees the faithful take Holy Communion in their hand (in a Protestant manner) or other liturgical abuses, the pious soul is deeply grieved in heart. We may feel anger at the clerics or faithful abusing Our Lord. We may feel despair that so few still believe in this precious dogma of our faith, the Real Presence, attacked for five centuries by heretics.
If we dwell on feelings such as these too much, we might be overwhelmed in our spirits, affecting our prayers lives, and, God forbid, our own faith.
Therefore I want to suggest another object of meditation for this crusade. This is contained in His Excellency’s original call for this crusade, when he provides this quotation from St. Peter Julian Eymard:
By instituting His Sacrament, Jesus perpetuated the sacrifices of His Passion. … He was acquainted with all the new Judases; He counted them among His own, among His well-beloved children. But nothing of all this could stop Him; He wanted His love to go further than the ingratitude and malice of man; He wanted to outlive man’s sacrilegious malice.
He knew beforehand the lukewarmness of His followers: He knew mine; He knew what little fruit we would derive from Holy Communion. But He wanted to love just the same, to love more than He was loved, more than man could make return for.[1]
Our Lord would rather continue His Passion on earth – by the sacrileges He suffers in the Most Blessed Sacrament – than remove His true presence from among His faithful. He is the Divine Bridegroom, Who has espoused His Mystical Bride, the Church, and will not leave her no matter what she does. I will espouse thee to me forever (Os. ii. 19).[2]
Here we are confronted with the infinite love of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, ready to endure all things rather than leave us all alone. Here I am reminded of Fr. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus when he reflects on the scourging:
The force of love alone is sufficient to bind Him to that pillar, ready and willing to submit to the scourges, and to shed every drop of His Blood. O Beloved Son of God! I thank Thee for such infinite charity![3]
In the same way the “force of love” – that mystical marriage bond with His Church – binds Our Blessed Lord to the Tabernacle, to the Altar, never to leave us, nor forsake us, sinners. Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Mt. xxviii. 20).
Come, Partake of the Passion of Christ
Therefore we join in this Passion of Our Lord, and take upon ourselves the penance to make reparation for ourselves and our brothers’ sins. The Catholic response to public sin is to do penance for the sinner. This is essential for three reasons: 1.) it gives God the glory due to Him, which was taken away by sin; 2.) it appeases His wrath against the sinner, and merits graces for his conversion; and 3.) it helps us to keep from sins of hatred against our brother or abusive spiritual fathers.
This last reason helps us to truly pray the Our Father from the heart: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and obey the admonition of Our Lord after He instituted the Lord’s Prayer: But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences (Mt. vi. 15).
This is the hardest part, but grace can make what is impossible for man possible with God. All that is needed is contained in the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Tomorrow is First Friday and Septuagesima is February 13th. Let us consider our souls and the love of God, and bind ourselves to the Pillar with Christ’s force of love.
Join the Crusade of Reparation
The crusade means making a commitment to God to do one or all of these things:
- One hour Adoration per month in reparation for the sins committed against the Blessed Sacrament.
- Pray regularly the Prayer of the Crusade of Reparation to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.
To these two practices outlined by His Excellency we add a third according to the new intention, as OnePeterFive columnist Fr. John Zuhlsdorf has outlined:
- Become a “Custos Traditionis” by paying the Memorare daily with weekly penance for the reversal of Traditionis Custodes.
Once you have committed to one or all of these prayers and penances, then do one or all of the following:
- Promote, plan and execute a weekly, monthly, and/or annual reparation Mass and devotions in your parish and diocese. His Excellency suggests a “Day of Reparation for Crimes Against the Most Holy Eucharist” in each diocese as the octave day of Corpus Christi.
- Gather a group in your parish or diocese to pray regularly these prayers for your bishop to restore the Latin Mass in your diocese and root our liturgical abuses and sacriledges.
- Read Kwasniewski’s manifesto of Eucharistic Reparation: Holy Bread of Eternal Life: Restoring Eucharistic Reverence in an Age of Impiety
- Read Bishop Laise’s treatise against Communion in Hand (Holy Communion), and His Excellency’s Dominus Est and buy all these books for priests and bishops.
- Send me an email (editor [at] onepeterfive.com) to join our mailing list so that we can coordinate the promotion and spread of this crusade to as many souls as possible.
- Send us submissions on this topic! We will publish every month to promote this. What are you doing in your local parish or family that has worked to spread Eucharistic devotion and reparation? What can you write to promote this cause?
T. S. Flanders
Editor
St. Blase
[1] Peter Julian Eymard, The Real Presence, 29. The Most Blessed Sacrament is not Loved!, III.
[2] This is what we previously reflected upon in our essays on Pornocracy (here and here).
[3] Fr. Ignatius, School of Jesus Crucified, day XVI.
