Upon hearing the news of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing last Friday night, in all charity a thoughtful Catholic should have offered some prayer for the repose of her soul. Priests hopefully would have included her in the Memento of the Dead at Mass in the days following. And we would hope that her soul is being prayed for as Rosary beads are thumbed by tens of thousands of Catholics across the country, all the while invoking the Mother of God to see that a new Justice is nominated and approved who will be the almost complete antithesis of Ginsburg. Not like we should put our hope in politics, as government and governors cannot save us from our sins nor from death. But we rightfully should have legitimate love of our country during our lives, always wanting to see it turn from evil and misguided ways and promote a citizenry that is virtuous.

Nonetheless, we do not get off this world alive, and the death of this prominent and influential Justice should give us pause about that very reality. Her decisions have impacted millions upon millions of lives, born and unborn, of which she had to make an account before God. This is quite daunting to think about. The secular press will laud her efforts as “pioneering” in the cause of equal rights, but it is overall clear and alarming where her priorities were, and we should rightfully have concern about her eternal fate.

Justice Ginsburg considered unrestricted abortion and access to it as a “right” for all women, and so a worldview like that will define how other issues are approached. Poisoning the river at its source adversely affects what happens downstream. This is something that cannot be ignored or escaped from, regardless of whether she may have decided favorably at times on less weighty matters. If a jewel thief happens to save an old woman crossing the street from getting hit by a car, that does not exonerate him; he still needs to stop his thievery and make amends.

So while overcoming human challenges over the course of decades to become the second woman to sit on the Supreme Court, there was no questioning her determination to implement an agenda that stood fundamentally in opposition to the most basic right every human being has. The fact that Planned Parenthood mourns the loss of a heroine in their eyes speaks volumes. The secularists stand ready to canonize another “saint” of their making, evident from the hysteria we are witnessing in some sectors over her “untimely” passing.  In spite of Jewish roots, Justice Ginsburg seemed to show little care of what the God of Abraham thought about life, the natural law, and eternity, and voted as such in the key Supreme Court decisions during her tenure.

So it is on an occasion like this where thoughtful Catholics may find right reason and supernatural hope in conflict. After all, how are we to reconcile the thought of someone so committed to such a secular anti-life, anti-God platform as being admitted into a Vision where everything there is the very opposite of what she advocated during this life?

If there is even a modicum of accuracy that her dying wish was that President Trump not be the man who proposes her successor, it seems this life is all she had to hold on to. How ironic and disturbing is a life hailed as “progressive” and “forward thinking” by her champions now forced to retreat back upon itself, isolated in the face of eternity.

But while nations pass away, the Word of God does not, and no one can resist that. Indeed the will of God is our sanctification, He does will for us to be with Him in heaven for eternity, but that comes on the condition that we want to go there: If you love Me, keep My commandments. (Jn. 14:15) Our Lord forces no one to accept His love, but the rejection of it will have its consequences. In fact, He further warns that a person can become so blinded to the true good on account of obstinacy in evil that he comes to think that killing the good is actually a service to God. (Jn. 16:2)

However, it is Catholic teaching that, while we can definitely know who is in heaven, we cannot know with certainty (outside of a private revelation) if someone is damned. The pains of hell described by Our Lord in the Gospel suggest hell is far from empty; various visions of hell given to the saints through the course of two thousand years indicates that it is quite crowded. It would be misplaced optimism and foolish to think otherwise.

That said, there is wisdom in the Church’s teaching that we cannot know with certainty if a specific soul is in hell. One reason is because it keeps us from giving up on someone. We must remember that hell is so bad that we should never wish a soul to be there, even when the evidence looks bleak for someone this side of eternity. To do so would be a grave offense against charity towards our neighbor. Another reason is that it helps us remember that the price of an individual soul – beginning with our own – is our Lord’s Blood, and that should humble us at the thought that we, too, will all meet the same God for our exit interviews from this life, and to consider how well we have heeded His words. Furthermore, it leaves the individual judgment of a soul where it must be left – between the soul and the God who alone knows and reads the heart, and who accounts for each and every grace given, accepted, and rejected through life, usually unknown to the seeing public.

But Justice Ginsburg was given at least one grace in full view, and it is something even the secular media has found quite intriguing: her close friendship with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a devout and principled Catholic whose voting record on the key issues reflected the God He loved and the Faith he internalized. The two could not have been more opposite in terms of world view; undoubtedly they locked horns often – and on the most fundamental things – but their passion for law and other mutual interests outside the Court served to unite them. She admitted that he was formidable in his challenges to her; his masterfully written dissents and arguments would merit thoughtful consideration, and she valued that. This intrigues the media, and should actually intrigue us, because there is something quite noble about it: in these days of such polarization that people who disagree cannot sit around a table, let alone be friends, here are two who could, and did. Given the man Justice Scalia was, we can likely surmise the type of friend he was as well. Only God knows how many Rosaries he prayed and how many Masses he offered for his dear friend Ruth, that she come to know and love the divine Judge who was the inspiration and model of his own career as a judge, and who ought to become the one for hers.

And he would not have given up in spite of the human odds, because that is how Catholics are called to love. As some saint writes somewhere: To love another in the highest sense of the word is to wish that person eternal possession of God and to lead him to it. True, although Justice Scalia would lead, the decision to follow would be hers. But in their friendship, he endeavored to be the presence of Christ in her life, the herald of a Kingdom, a bearer of Good News, the deliverer of an invitation to a heavenly wedding banquet offered to anyone, if only she be willing to put on the required wedding garment of faith and charity.

So as we can reasonably and legitimately have concern about where Justice Ginsburg may now be, the example of Justice Scalia should temper some of that. None of us want to be given up on, and so perhaps we can find a reason, on account of the prayers of her true friend, that Justice Ginsburg may have met a Mother at her judgement who was able to tip the scale of justice?

There is certainly no loss in a heartfelt prayer for that.

We are pleased to pass along this wonderful video of Our Lady of Guadalupe seminarians singing  “O Crux, Ave, Spes Unica” by Antoine Brumel, with text coming from the sixth verse of the Vespers hymn Vexilla Regis.

O Crux, Ave, Spes, Unica

Hoc passionis tempore,

Auge piis justiam Reisque dona

(veni) veniam

“O Cross, Hail, our only hope in this Passiontide, grant increase of justice and grant pardon to the guilty.”

OLGS director Nicholas Lemme and the seminarians will be performing the piece as part of a larger concert program in Lincoln, Nebraska tomorrow (Sept. 24).

There is a great deal of difference between freedom of thought and freedom from thought.

Before we went to school, we were free to think that a yard was 28 inches. But once we were taught that it was actually 36 inches, we had to change our original supposition to the correct one.

By doing so, we were then able to build upon that idea. With correct measurements, we were now free to calculate the length of a football field accurately and safely, and participate in a common shared reality.

That is freedom of thought because it empowers us to use our reason correctly.

Freedom from thought would be holding on to an error after being taught that such is not the case.

One would still be free (in a sense) to construct a whole world around an erroneous measurement, but it would not be the world of reality or truth.

And any attempt to impose that world of unreality and untruth on others would, actually, be a form of violence, as it is a threat to true freedom.

Isn’t it interesting, that when the thought police and their fellow inmates try to take over the asylum of truth — a structure so very necessary for their own safety and protection — violence becomes the tool of choice?

For centuries now, the Church has been accused of promoting freedom from thought.

Rather than seeing her unchanging deposit of Faith as something that establishes boundaries–within which we can think correctly about the purpose of life and guiding all things towards it–the Church is considered an agent of darkness who tries to keep her followers in ignorance by telling them how and what to think.

This calls to mind a bumper sticker that reads “If you do not pray in my schools, I won’t think in your churches,” as if prayer and thought are mutually exclusive. Eyeballs are rolled and laughter is heard at the notion that a thoughtful Catholic looks at what the Church teaches about a particular matter and uses that to determine how to act.

It is kind of a silly joke though, when you think about it.

A skyscraper is realized only because an architect has been “told what to think” about addition, subtraction, gravity, and building materials, among other things.

An airman needs to be “told what to think” about the laws of aerodynamics.

Any disregard of even a small component would spell disaster. Buildings would fall and planes would crash, or never even get airborne, on account of all this nominal “freedom.”

Yet there are virtually endless possibilities regarding the buildings that can be designed and built, or the planes that can be flown, when what one has been told what to think.

The same can be said for the human person if what the Church teaches is respected in all its fullness.

Christ has revealed the way and the life for us and has promised to supply the grace we need to generously follow and live it.

That is what a saint is.

Our Lord specifically says that we must enter by the narrow gate, and true freedom is found on that path alone. No one would accuse the track of impeding the freedom of a train; quite the contrary, it enables the train to function correctly and reach its destination.

The Church’s deposit of Faith and moral teachings are the track to eternal life for the train of our souls. And the alternative Christ describes is not a pretty one: Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. (Mt. 7:13)

Any wonder why so many souls appear to be such train wrecks?

We had occasion last week to publish an interview with Fr. Armand de Malleray, FSSP, author of the books X-Ray of the Priest in a Field Hospital and Ego Eimi: It Is I — Falling in Eucharistic Love.

In the same week Father de Malleray also came out with a fascinating piece on Communion in the hand called “Digital Communion: A Modern Invention”, addressing the existence of the practice in antiquity and also drawing an important distinction between receiving the Sacred Host from the hand or the mouth, and taking it with one’s own fingers.

Some excerpts:

Why a new expression, then? Digital Communion, you may think, merely describes Communion on the hand. If this were the case, there would be nothing new to add, since you were told that Communion on the hand had always existed. Communion on the hand, you learnt, was used by early Christians.

So we assumed, like you did, until we read the short but enlightening study by a bishop from Asia. This little book is called Dominus Est: It is the Lord (2008, Newman House Press), by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, the Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference in Kazakhstan. Holding a doctorate in Patristics from Rome, the author studied intensively the Fathers of the Church who tell us how things were done in early Christian centuries. In short, Bishop Schneider proves that never did our Christian forefathers take the Sacred Host with their fingers to put it into their mouth. For a few centuries, in some regions, the Sacred Host was laid by the priest into the right hand of the communicant (her hand veiled if a woman). The right hand was deemed nobler than the left one. At Holy Communion the communicant would bow his head low towards his right palm and would receive the Sacred Host directly with his lips and tongue, without using his fingers at all.

….

Why this? The reason is that using one’s fingers to seize something denotes authority and power over the thing. And this seemed disrespectful toward the Sacred Host who is God Himself. Only the priest celebrant at Mass consumes the Sacred Host from his own fingers, because he has just consecrated the Sacred Species. The celebrant is the only one acting in the Person of Christ as consecrator of the Holy Eucharist. This enables him to act later on as distributor of the same sacrament, by virtue of his identity as “sacerdos”, literally, “the one who gives the sacred”; and in direct fulfilment of Christ’s mandate to his apostles in the multiplication of the loaves prefiguring Holy Communion: “give you them to eat” (Mt 14:16).

….

St John’s Gospel does not describe the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist. Only Sts Matthew, Mark and Luke do so in their three Synoptic Gospels, and St Paul in his first Letter to the Corinthians. Out of eight descriptions then (four for the Host and another four for the Chalice), six do not mention the verb ‘take’ in the Greek original. Only two do so, St Matthew and St Mark, using the same Greek verb ‘labēte’ (imperative, second person plural) which can be translated as ‘take’ or as ‘receive’.[iv] This word occurs seven times in Holy Scripture, always in the New Testament. Significantly, the very same verb is translated as ‘take’ when the intention is sacrilegious; but it is translated as ‘receive’, when the intention is pious. Thus in St John’s Gospel on Good Friday: “When the chief priests, therefore, and the servants, had seen him, they cried out, saying: Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith to them: Take him you, and crucify him: for I find no cause in him” (Jn 19:6). But in the next chapter, after the Resurrection: “Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (Jn 20:22). No Evangelist, neither St Paul, mentions ‘taking’ for the chalice at the Last Supper. Thus, as we see, six times out of eight (equivalent to 75% of cases), there is no mention of taking Holy Communion, either from the Host or from the Chalice. In the two occasions when the Greek verb ‘labēte’ is used for the Sacred Host, it allows for opposite meanings: take if sacrilegious, or receive if pious.

Read the piece in full here.

When certain words get thrown around a lot in the media, it is usually because the common understanding has been somewhat confused, and someone is trying to impose a new meaning on them.

This is what we seem to find happening with the word privilege.

The word finds its origin from the Latin privilegium, its root word being lex, meaning law. Together with the prefix “privi,” privilege would indicate then a law that applies to an individual. A basic example of a privilege would be when older children have later bedtimes than younger ones; in this case, age affects the application of the “law” of bedtime in the home.

Another example would be driving, where a person must not only be of appropriate age and maturity, but also has demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the rules of the road and a competency to safely operate a vehicle.

These basic examples show that privileges are different from rights. Whereas a right indicates a claim to something based on justice, a privilege indicates a potential qualification to something which may or may not be received: that is, privileges are earned.

Not everyone over sixteen should drive. But anyone over sixteen is expected to work honestly, both in justice to his employer and in compensation for a rightful wage. And while rights and privileges both carry the potential to be lost, privileges generally can be revoked for broader reasons. With these distinctions in mind, qualifications that determine privileges should not be deemed as arbitrary.

In other words, the qualification must fit the privilege.

There are no grounds for letting only the blond-haired children stay up later, regardless of age, and we can expect grumbling from the other children in such a circumstance.

However, while avoiding silly things like that, there is a significant danger when privileges become viewed as rights; something is universalized that should not be. Qualifications are readily manipulated to fit a supposed right based on the popular social narrative.

For instance, if a cause was introduced from some political group that proclaimed driving as a right for everyone, the blind could be stoked to rise up and claim that they have been oppressed since the invention of cars, or even horse-drawn buggies. A myriad of programs would then be introduced to make everyone sensitive to the driving rights of the blind, and new cars developed at great expense for this newly-found and newly-defined right to be realized.

Any person with common sense would be bewildered by this, because driving was always seen as a privilege, and being able to see was one of the many qualifications for it.

However, this is quite different than if a person is denied her legitimate right to a basic education on account of being blind. Again, sensible people would favor the allocation of resources in an effort for this to be corrected. (Similarly, we must also remember that the opposite of a legitimate right cannot be claimed as a right itself, nor a privilege; thus there is no such thing as a “right to an abortion.”)

Only by blurring the important distinction between privilege and right are fists raised and cities burned to throw off some sense of oppression that is readily exploited by other elite forces to upset the social order. Many jump on the bandwagon without realizing the implications, promoting a cause they never would have in calmer times. Suddenly everyone becomes a victim.

How many in the mob called for our Lord to be crucified who would never have done such a thing unless, having lost circumspection, they sadly got caught up in the heat of the moment?

We are pleased to present an interview with Fr. Armand de Malleray, FSSP, of Warrington, England on his new book X-Ray of the Priest in a Field Hospital (Arouca Press, 2020).

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Q: Thank you, Father, for taking time to answer some of our questions. First of all, who is this book aimed for? Just priests, or the laity as well?

A: Priests first. I give retreats to priests every year, most of them diocesan. They are fond of discovering the riches of the traditional philosophy, theology and spirituality. Of course most priests would know some of this teaching, but because of our traditional formation, we FSSP priests are in a good position to explain the beautiful connection between liturgy, philosophy, theology and spirituality. It’s a priestly package. It makes sense to priests who come across it. Even though it’s a bit daunting at first, seen from without, it rings very true and gives hope to priests who struggle in their ministry and in their priestly identity.

But X-Ray of the Priest is also for the laity. Lay people support us clergy through their alms, prayers, sacrifices and affection – as we know well with the 7,000 members of the Confraternity of St Peter, among others. The more the laity understand what the priesthood is about, the better they can safeguard, encourage and follow their pastors.

Q: The beginning of your book is an arresting and sobering description of 14 Stations of Priestly Apostasy, set against the backdrop of the 2016 film Silence. How does someone with the grace of the priesthood fall so low as to gravely sin, or even commit crimes?

A: There have been bad priests from the beginning, starting with Judas. What one could term the ‘Tridentine’ model of the priesthood offered customs and rules protecting the priest in his daily life. It was abandoned in the 1960s. We FSSP priests are privileged to use again most of these practices. They don’t make us impeccable, of course, since we are sinners like every one else. But they help us exercise prudence. Philosophers say ‘Agere sequitur esse’ – or ‘One behaves according to who one is’. Many modern priests have a very hazy understanding of who they are as priests. Priests are other Christs whose souls were substantially modified through the imprint of the priestly character, enabling them to posit sacred actions such as, chiefly, offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and reconciling penitents in Confession. Everything else in what a priest does is secondary. The more a priest realizes this truth, the more fulfilled he is in his relationship with God, hence the less gravely he is likely to fall.

Q: You cite a very extraordinary man named Karl Lesner, who was actually ordained a priest in the Dachau concentration camp. What lessons does his life offer us today?

A: Our FSSP European seminary in Wigratzbad is located in Bavaria, not far from the concentration camp of Dachau. It brought Karl’s virtues closer to us. Karl was an ordinary young man. Nazi persecution tested his priestly vocation to its utmost limit. By God’s grace, he triumphed. I think his traditional formation had given him a very clear grasp of what the priesthood is about. Union with Christ is key, especially in times of trial. This applies to all men, but especially to priests, empowered and mandated by Christ and His Church to be models of the flock and shepherds of souls. Karl persevered in answering his priestly call even amidst the horror of Dachau (the largest priestly cemetery in the world). His example proves fidelity possible for any priest, even though parish life is difficult at times; and despite the opposition from the world to priestly sanctity.

Q: You make a fascinating analogy between the Shroud and the unfolding or development of doctrine.  Why does God reveal doctrine gradually, instead of all at once?

A: We humans live in time. Adapting His communication to our condition, God reveals Himself to us gradually. He did so in the Old Testament through the Patriarchs, the Prophets and kings. He continues to reveal Himself by stages to us in the Christian era. He wishes our free collaboration. That is why He endowed us with understanding and free will after His image and likeness. Our interest and perseverance please Him. By analogy, it is like a father who provided a beautiful and costly present for his little boy: unwrapping it takes time; but that time is not wasted, rather, it demonstrates love shared. Only, in the case of God the Father, His Gift to us is His Son, Jesus.

Q: In light of your description of the “sensus fidei” as the sheep who follow the Good Shepherd to know and hear His voice, how do we balance obedience to the deposit of the faith with obedience to the clergy, when these appear to conflict?

A: We have highly reliable books to guide us, such the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the various traditional books of theology and spirituality (e.g. by Fr Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange OP) and so many enlightening encyclicals such as Casti Connubii, Mystici Corporis, Fides et Ratio or Ecclesia de Eucharistia. God expects us to use the intellect He gave us to assess whether a homily or a parish bulletin is consistent or not with what Holy Mother Church has believed and professed everywhere and always. We may respectfully request clarification from our pastors if some of their statements are unclear, or even inaccurate. The Tenth Rule for Thinking with the Church by St Ignatius Loyola recommends:

“To be eager to commend the decrees, mandates, traditions, rites and customs of the Fathers in the Faith or our superiors. As to their conduct; although there may not always be the uprightness of conduct that there ought to be, yet to attack or revile them in private or in public tends to scandal and disorder. Such attacks set the people against their princes and pastors; we must avoid such reproaches and never attack superiors before inferiors. The best course is to make private approach to those who have power to remedy the evil.” If a scandal is obvious and grave though, a quicker reaction might be needed, if prompted by the Spirit of Truth and Charity.

Q: You devote quite a bit of your book to the feminine archetypes of Eve and the Blessed Virgin, and to bridal imagery. How do these connect with the priesthood?

A: Our Lord is the Bridegroom and Holy Church is His mystical Bride. In the sacrament of Matrimony, husband and wife echo this mystical complementation. The priest stands and acts in the Person of Christ in relation to the particular flock entrusted to his care. Priestly celibacy is best understood in this light. The priest renounces the legitimate joys of marriage and family so as to manifest his total availability in the service of the group of souls put under his responsibility by his ecclesiastical superior.

Q: The end of the book drives home the historical importance of religious orders. Do you see a need for their revival?  And what is the young laity’s role in that?

A: The fourth of the Rules by St Ignatius quoted above states: “To have a great esteem for the religious orders, and to give the preference to celibacy or virginity over the married state.” I am sure that this is a bit shocking even for traditional Catholics. We need to recover the precedence of the consecrated state over married life. Sure, we need many strong Catholic families. But no less do we need to revive failing religious orders. In fact, both grow together: strong religious life makes strong families, and vice-versa. When reviving a dying monastery doesn’t work, then by God’s inspiration and grace, the young people must found new orders. Needless to say, they will prosper only to the extent in which they will draw from the wisdom and experience of the glorious orders of old such as the Benedictines, the Dominicans, the Carthusians, the Carmelites, the Jesuits etc.

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Fr. de Malleray’s X-Ray of the Priest in a Field Hospital is available from Fraternity Publications. Also by the same author is a book on the Holy Eucharist with a foreword by Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Ego Eimi – It is I, Falling in Eucharistic Love: Reflections on the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist.

September 9th in many countries marks the feast of St. Peter Claver, who won the honors of the altar by tending to Africans being trafficked in the Atlantic Slave Trade. Claver has been specially honored across the diaspora as a great patron saint, and the study of African languages played an absolutely crucial part in his holy work.

Claver’s predecessor ministering to the Africans at Cartagena was the Jesuit Alonso de Sandoval, who had counted 70 different languages among them.  Slave-masters refused to help the Jesuit find interpreters, so he was compelled to walk around the entire day looking for them. Exhausted by this, Sandoval compiled and used a little notebook, alphabetically listing interpreters’ names and addresses so that they could be easily tracked down. And even after all that, some interpreters, whether due to lack of understanding or lack of interest, didn’t faithfully convey what he told them.

For his part, St. Peter Claver tried to remedy the situation by learning “the Angola language”, one of the primary languages spoken by the slaves at this time. This was likely the language we know today as Kimbundu, which is spoken by around 2 million souls in modern Angola, and among the first Bantu languages to be published and studied.

We do not have a great deal of information about Claver’s progress in the language, but that is perhaps the way he wanted it. For he seems to have relied not so much on his own scholarship, but on surrounding himself with a set of trustworthy African interpreters whose linguistic prowess proved absolutely indispensable to his ministry. Many of them spoke multiple languages, and one was even named after the famous Augustinian linguist Ambrosio Calepino and described as follows in 1638:

“One of them was named Calepino for knowing eleven [languages], through which God’s paternal providence evidently fights and shows how much He esteems and protects this occupation and saintly ministry, giving him to this school as a singular insignia and honor.”

Some 30 interpreters are named in the documents of the time–some of whom were consulted in Claver’s Processes of Beatification and Canonization. And from them we get a little taste of the humility of the saint.

Francisco Yolofo, a Wolof interpreter from Senegambia, related to the commission that during catechism sessions, Father Claver would have the interpreters speak from tall chairs with armrests, while he sat on a clay pot or on a piece of wood. Some European officials became angry at Fr. Claver for this arrangement, saying it was not right for the black interpreters to be seated in positions of authority over him. But the priest insisted that the interpreters were more necessary in this work than he was, and that it was vital for the catechumens to respect the catechists’ authority and believe what they said.

Toward the end of Claver’s life, his health did not permit him to go to the ships in the harbor. So he sent the interpreters by themselves–allowing them to take on his life’s work upon their own shoulders.

It is perhaps too easy for us to simply read the hagiographical accounts of thousands and thousands of Baptisms and forget that many of these were beset by seemingly insurmountable complications of language. We may think of a slave in chains bowing his head to receive the sacred waters, but we don’t generally think of the chains of interpreters required to bring him to that sacramental moment.

Certainly, as Claver himself said, it was charity and kindness that won hearts at first, not eloquence: “This was how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions.” But we also know that the canons of the Church do not allow Baptism without prior instruction and willing acceptance–for which communication is absolutely essential. The food and water that Claver brought could only refresh bodies, not souls.

So while we honor the way St. Peter Claver and his African interpreters softened the hearts of his catechumens with physical comforts, let us remember, too, the prodigious intellectual labors involved, which opened those catechumens’ minds to a more glorious freedom than could ever be experienced on earth.

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP.

If one were to visit Cerami, Sicily on September 7, one would encounter young women wearing red tunics, harkening back to the time the island was Greek, and young men wearing blue shirts and black pants.  Dressed in this festive attire, they are assisting at the annual Maria SS della Lavina celebration.

Devotion to the Maria SS della Lavina image is traced back to a Byzantine icon which was brought to the area at some unknown time in the past (several theories exist which attempt to explain the arrival of this Byzantine icon in Sicily).  The icon, as it shows Our Lady suckling Our Lord, is interpreted by the locals as an image of Our Lady of Graces [la Madonna delle Grazie].  Such depictions of Our Lord and Our Lady are ancient.  “The earliest images of Mary nursing the Child are of Coptic [Egyptian] and Palestinian origin…From the Monastery of Saint Sabas in Palestine, the composition spread to Italy (Rome, Santa Maria in Trastevere) and, via Serbia, reached the monasteries of Mount Athos. In the seventh century, during the struggle with the Iconoclasts, Pope Gregory II (d. 731) wrote to his adversary, Emperor Leo III the Isaurian: ‘Among the icons to be worshiped there is also an image of the Holy Mother holding our Lord and God in her arms and nursing him with her milk.’” (Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church, pg. 183)

The original Maria SS della Lavina icon was, according to the harmonized, pious local tradition, housed in a convent of Benedictine nuns.  During a time of danger and iconoclasm, the icon was nailed to a beam in the ceiling in order to protect it.  When that danger had passed, the icon was left in its hiding place. Eventually the nuns moved to a different location, leaving the icon behind, and the monastery fell into disrepair.

In the mid-seventeenth century, it is held that Our Lady appeared several times in a dream to one of the Benedictine nuns and directed her to request that the local Archpriest unearth from the ruins of the old monastery the sacred icon.  The request was received with skepticism by the priest.

During the third apparition, Our Lady stated that because of the skepticism of the priest, she herself would bring the icon to light.  Soon, a torrential rain fell which caused flooding.  The day after, a farmer was leading his mule near the torrent caused by the rainfall.  Inexplicably, the mule then stopped and, after striking the mud with his hoof, knelt.  The farmer, struggling to get his mule to move, drew by this commotion the attention of those who were nearby.  After digging, and to the astonishment of those present, the icon of the Blessed Virgin and the Christ Child was found buried in the mud.  (It is claimed than an imprint of the mule’s hoof can still be seen on the sacred icon.)

As soon as the Archpriest heard of the episode, shaken and repentant, he made the bells ring out and, together with a large crowd of faithful, went to the site and the sacred icon was recovered with great devotion.  In memory of this event, in May, Cerami celebrates the Feast of the Encounter and the icon is carried in procession.

From this time, the image received the title of “Lavina” from u lavinaru, which means in the local dialect “torrent,” a reference to how the image was discovered after the torrential rainfall carried the image out of the ruins and buried it in the mud caused by the flooding.

The pious tradition also tells us that the discovery of the icon was crowned by some miraculous events: one of the best known is of a certain Giuseppe, blind for thirteen years, who, as soon as the news of what had happened reached him, was led by his relatives to the image, and, having kissed the holy icon, regained his sight.

While the miraculous icon itself was placed in the church of the new covenant, a chapel was built on the site where the icon was found.  Due to damage received over the years, especially during the Second World War, this chapel has gone under several renovations since its original construction.  Within this chapel was placed a newly produced painting (17th century) which depicted the same scene written on the icon, that of Our Lady nursing Our Lord.  The new image along with the new chapel received the name of Maria SS della Lavina also, thus linking them with the devotion shown to the miraculous icon.  It is this second image, the painting, which is carried in procession during the September celebration.

Devotion to this image of the Virgin and Christ Child was brought to the United States by Italian immigrants.  A Maria SS della Lavina Society was organized at St. Aloysius Church in Caldwell, New Jersey by the early 1900s which was legally chartered in 1912.  This Society held yearly processions in the town originally with a banner and later with a painting.  This painting, which still currently hangs at the church, was undertaken in 1934 by Mr. Onorio Ruotolo, founder of the New York City Leonardo da Vinci Art School.

Some may object to this presentation of the Virgin and Child on grounds of modesty.  In our overly immodest culture, it is tempting to retreat into a puritanical position in this regard.  Faithful Catholics, however, must ensure that they do not simply take a reactionary position, but should rather allow themselves to be formed in this matter by the perennial liturgical and devotional traditions of the Church.  Such would do well to consider, for example, the Epistles read on the Thursday of the First Week of Lent and the Saturday of the Third Week of Lent and the Gospel assigned for the Saturday Mass of Our Lady during the Time After Pentecost in order to see what the Church allows to be read in her public liturgy and which she does not view as degrading to the dignity of the sacred action.  Such should consider also the Marian hymn O gloriósa vírginum which is sung in the Divine Office.  The first verse is as follows:

Drawing from the letter of Pope Gregory II, we can see that the practice of depicting the Virgin suckling her Child has existed in the Church for over 1,000 years.  In Bethlehem, one can even find a Chapel under the name “Milk Grotto of Our Lady.”  According to pious tradition, the Holy Family stopped at this site during the Flight into Egypt, and there, while Our Lord was feeding, a drop of Mary’s milk fell, and the floor of the cave turned white.  Let faithful Catholics then allow their position on this matter, as in all others, be formed according to the mind of the Church as perennially expressed in her approved liturgies and devotions.

May God bless you all and may you have a happy and blessed Maria SS della Lavina Feast Day!

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Mater Lavinæ!

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently Assistant Pastor at Mater Misericordiae parish in Phoenix, AZ.  Thanks are due to Msgr. Robert Emery, Pastor of St. Aloysius Church in Caldwell, New Jersey, for his support and permission to use parish media, Mr. Fabio Sturchio for his translation work, Mr. Antonino Casabona for granting permission to use his photographs, Mr. Franco Digangi for providing historical information and review, and Mrs. Santa Rock and Ms. Ashleigh Grenci for photography.

We witness many things that are upside down and backwards being treated like they are right-side-up and forwards, and we see a tool used in this process that is known as the “cancel culture.”

Essentially, what the cancel culture does is use whatever bad it can drudge up from a person’s past in order to discredit and marginalize them, defining their entire life around that moment.

Especially in this age of the Internet and instant communication, it can be easy to isolate a questionable comment or incident someone made decades ago and then resurrect it out of context (or, for the less scrupulous, to simply make it up) in the attempt to assassinate a person’s character and cancel the person’s credibility. We watched this take place during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing; he survived the relentless onslaught, but damage was done to him and his family.

As we find ourselves resisting the “woke” state forming around us, we see that none of us are safe from this. We have all made plenty of mistakes in our lives; there are things in our pasts that we are not particularly proud of and wish to forget – and hope are never resurrected – and we can have genuine regret and compunction for them.

However, this idea of a cancel culture is actually nothing new; what we are facing nowadays is simply a hijacked and backwards expression of it.

The original cancel culture arose in the mind and heart of God.

It began minutes after the sin of Adam and Eve, when God promised a Redeemer (cf. Gen. 3:15), and it would be realized four millennia later when Christ came and canceled upon the Cross humanity’s eternal debt of sin, meriting for us the grace of forgiveness for all our personal sins.

Quite unlike our modern bloodthirsty cancel culture that seeks to assassinate and destroy the person, God’s cancel culture is based on mercy that flows from the Blood of Christ. It seeks to assassinate and destroy our sins while redeeming the person in return, filling us with His very life of sanctifying grace, so much so that He wishes to come and make His abode in our souls.

While the modern cancel culture tries to elicit and keep us in fear, God’s cancel culture is all about love and trust.

While the modern cancel culture tries to marginalize and admit only those who comply with its foolish party line, in God’s cancel culture all can approach, for, having been lifted up on the Cross, Christ wills to draw all to Himself.

No matter what may befall us in this life, regardless of the trials we may be asked by God to undergo, as Catholics we are citizens of heaven by Baptism and so must acclimate ourselves to the cancel culture characteristic of God’s Kingdom. Therefore, the good and frequent use of confession with true sorrow and a firm purpose of amendment is of great importance in our lives.

And that is where we find the most significant difference between these two cancel cultures.

Whereas the kingdom of “woke” strives to remember our sins, in the Kingdom of God, He chooses to forget them entirely.