Excellent work, Ladislaus.
Just this brief recording alone is so encouraging. Everyone should listen to it again and again.
I have a special place in my heart for St. Alphonsus and The Glories of Mary, since that book was responsible for my having become a Traditional Catholic.
I was away at college in Chicago (Loyola University, Jesuit) and before returning home to NE Ohio for Christmas break, I was walking around the city and stopped in a Catholic book store to buy some gift for my parents. I happened to pick up this book, since, I figured, well, it has to be decent since it was written by a saint. I bought a copy for myself also, so one for me, one for my parents.
After Christmas, I started reading the book at college. For some reason, since my High School was so incredibly demanding, I had more time than I knew what to do with in college. At one point when I first got there, i wasn't praying all that much, considering myself "too busy". Then I started to force myself to go to daily Mass (sadly, NO) and to pray the Holy Rosary every day ... regardless of how busy I thought I was. Something very strange happened where after a few weeks of that, I suddenly found that I had more time than I knew what to do with and was bored, often looking for things to do. I would literally spend 4-5 hours walking around the streets of Chicago on Saturday mornings around campus, and there were literally two dozen churches within that walking distance, one on almost every street corner ... where each and every one could not be built today for any price, and if they could find the artisans with the skills to actually do it ... would probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars. What a magnificent city in terms of that Catholic footprint.
So, after that digression, back to St. Alphonsus. I was reading The Glories of Mary, and suddenly, for no known reason, since St. Alphonsus did not say anything about it, since that was already the practice back then ... I decided that I needed to kneel to receive Holy Communion. So I began to do that and then started getting reprimanded by Novus Ordo presbyters for it. Very gradually, while reading the book, my eyes began to open to the effect that, and I recall having almost this exact thought verbatim: "the faith this man, St. Alphonsus has ... it's simply not the same that the modern post-Vatican II Church has", and "it's just not the same religion". I was not well catechized, had little knowledge of Traditional theology, and this was not a realization built on some "theological study", but simply the application of a layman's "sensus fidei" inspired by the grace of God and the Holy Ghost. Our Lord said that His sheep would know His voice. I say this often in retrospect, that God did not and will never require anyone to be a trained theologian to analyze the errors of Vatican II and "rule out" some "hermeneutic of continuity". As Our Lord Himself taught in Sacred Scripture, addressing His (and our) Father: "... Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones." (St. Matthew 11:25) That's why I believe God FORCED the wicked infiltrators to reveal themselves. Had Vatican II merely consisted of a few heterodox or even erroneous passages in that "Pastoral Council", and there had been no New Mass, no bogus saints, etc. etc. ... there would never have been a Traditional movement. Now, the conspirators are normally patient and play a "long game", but I believe they're on a limited timeline here, as per the vision attributed to Pope Leo XIII, but otherwise they could have taken their time and boiled the frog over centuries, and they did in different ways. But once they infiltrated, God forced them to reveal themselves, with the New Religion, the New Mass, the bogus saints, going hog wild with clown Masses, altar girls, liturgical dance. Otherwise, if they had hidden behind the Latin version of the Novus Ordo even as at St. John Cantius that the average layman can't tell from the Tridentine ... they could have fooled everyone. But God forced them to show that "an enemy hath done this" and this is all being done by wicked infiltrators, and that the voice of Prevost is not that of the Shepherd, but that of a wolve in sheep's clothing. So the extent of my "theological" reasoning was at the Sesame Street level of "which of these things is not like the other?" hmmm. These two things don't match. Conciliar Church here. pre-Vatican II Church there. hmmm. Not the same.
At some point, then, I started to look around, heard about the Archbiship, read Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, and then heard about an SSPX chapel far from campus, that had this Traditional Latin Mass, and I myself was majoring in Greek and Latin (on their Classics scholarship). It was tough, since I had no vehicle, and the Mass was outside of the public train transportation (the elevated trains), so I had to go to the end of the train line and transfer to a bus, etc. ... and it took me about 90 minutes each way to get to Mass by train and bus. I couldn't afford cabs (didn't have much money).
I then came home for Easter break, and I was shocked to find, since we hadn't spoken about it ... that my mother, reading the book, ALSO decided to start (independently of me) kneeling for Holy Communion. Then my entire family did, and our Novus Ordo presbyter (since laicized and married) reprimanded us for kneeling, and my father was enraged, and that was the last time any of us went to a Novus Ordo Mass, as we found Father Leo Carley in Akron. We had only been permitted a once-per-month "Indult" Mass by the limp-wristed lisping Anthony Pilla, deliberate at a nursing home and hour drive from our home, at 2:30 PM one Sunday per month. Father Kilcoyne, a very good older priest offered that Mass, and told us one day (our parents had 5 children at Mass) that Pilla asked him whether any people under 30 were attending, since he had only allowed those over 30 to attend the Mass, and Father Kilcoyne, God rest his soul said he told the bishop "I don't know, since I have my back to the people the entire time." ... as he was looking right at our family with 5 younger children.
Long digression, but that's my story about having become Traditional Catholic through The Glories of Mary, and that's why I'm starting with that one, and I intend that to be the first one I finish and release.
Topic: Traditional Catholic Audio (Read 1005 times)