Father Pivert, a priest of the resistance based in France explains why one must be faithful to resistance only Masses.
AI Audio and transcription
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Well, dear brethren, today I am going to tell you about the life of Jacob, which is at once the announcement of the struggle of the enemies of Jesus Christ against Him—against Jesus Christ—and of the protection that God evidently gives to His Son, the Word, since the Word is God and man.
It is also the announcement, one might even say a pattern, of the devil's struggle against the Church, with God's extraordinary protection over His Church; and it is also, of course, an announcement of the struggle we know today, likewise with God's protection—but a protection that goes further than mere shielding, as I shall show you, which is an elevation to a great intimacy with God, a great preparation for an extraordinary Heaven where we shall contemplate God, if we are faithful. God does more than protect Jacob: He forms him; He makes a saint of him.
And a saint is one who, in all the trials of this world, not only remains faithful, but discovers the power, the goodness, the mercy, and the love of God, and who, because of this, is himself set ablaze with love for God and with gratitude.
God thus brings him into His intimacy, which would not have been possible if man, through trials, had not detached himself from overly human conceptions and from attachments to this world below, and if he had not undergone the experience that allows him to receive the fullness of God's grace. We left Jacob having just received his father’s blessing—an extraordinary blessing, since it is the transmission of the promises relating to Christ, and because God seals an alliance with Jacob, an alliance of friendship. He makes him a saint, and all saints are intimates of God.
Esau receives only a blessing in the fatness of the earth; and above all, his father announces to him that he will be subject to his brother. He announces something even worse: that Esau will not accept this subjection willed by God, but will revolt and shake off the dominion, the yoke of his brother.
Esau is therefore determined to put his brother to death, like Cain toward Abel, except that he knows his father protects Jacob; so he awaits his father's death, ruminating on what he believes to be vengeance, which in reality is nothing but hatred and revolt. Rebecca, in her wisdom, calls her son and says to him: "Do not stay here; you must flee from your brother. Go away to my brother Laban, your uncle; there you will be safe." Of course, she does nothing without her husband, and Isaac says to his son: "Indeed, go to your uncle; there you will find a woman who fears God, who venerates God, and not one of these Canaanite women such as your brother Esau has married, who cause us such grief." Jacob is thus persecuted; but also, he who received the promises sets out with nothing. He will even specify later, in a prayer he offers to God: "With my staff alone I passed over this Jordan." Nothing else; absolutely nothing else.
Remember, this is not merely a human story, but the history of the Church and our own history, since this story has both a prophetic sense regarding the Church and a moral sense regarding ourselves—the two being, evidently, joined and superimposed.
Thus, we flee. We flee before Esau. We flee before the wicked world which is the accomplice of the devil. (This is an expression that often returned to the lips of Archbishop Lefebvre: "the world, accomplice of the devil," or "the devil and his accomplices.")
We flee, and it seems to us that we are completely deprived of God's help. What will become of our spiritual life? What will become of us without Sacraments, with few priests, isolated in the midst of this world? We are often told: "Father, how can you be right? Those who follow you will be completely isolated. You tell them to beware of the modern Church. You tell them to beware of the Society of Saint Pius X which collaborates with the modern Church. You tell them to beware of all those who have joined the modern Church—the Fraternity of Saint Peter and the others. You surely cannot claim to be the only one who is right, even if you have a few colleagues with you."
Well, I have the answer, because I know the story of Jacob. Jacob had the answer in Faith and Hope, which are theological virtues. His father had obviously transmitted the Faith to him, and his grandfather Abraham even more so—he who saw not only the day of Christ, but also the Passion of Christ.
Nevertheless, such a trial is difficult to bear, and that is why, at the moment he departs, Jacob benefits from a vision of God—a famous vision that is very important: Jacob’s Ladder. He sleeps under the stars one night; he takes a stone for a pillow, and as soon as he is asleep, he sees a ladder whose feet are placed upon the earth and whose top rests upon Heaven. Yes, it rests. It is not a ladder just standing in the air, resting on the ground while the top rests on nothing. No, it rests upon Heaven. You might tell me one cannot rest upon Heaven. But yes, precisely, since it is something to make us understand—a representation—it leans upon God Almighty, who is far more powerful than the things of earth. Upon this ladder, the angels ascend and descend.
In the literal sense, it is the warning, the announcement that the angels accompany Jacob. That is why they descend; but they also ascend. This means God is signifying to Jacob that his trials will make him rise toward Him, will make him rise in holiness; and that the more he is stripped of the things of this world, the more he will be enriched with divine things. And the angels who ascend carry, if you will, the spirit of Jacob toward God.
That is the primary sense. But it is also the announcement of the descent of Christ with His Apostles, preceded by all the prophets, followed by all the preachers and all the bishops, who all descend toward the earth to save it and who draw the earth back up toward God—not the terrestrial earth, not the earth of "the world," the world accomplice to the devil, but who draw all faithful souls back up toward God. It is the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the beginning of a great procession, a great cortege that rises unceasingly toward Heaven. Jesus Christ is at the head; He is followed by all His faithful, and this continues until the end of the world.
Well, this great procession had already begun; there was in the Old Testament a multitude of faithful men—beginning with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—who were already following Christ. Certainly, they could not yet enter Heaven, the gate of which was closed; they waited in the abode of Limbo, which is a place of delight but is not Heaven.
And then, there is yet another significance, given by Saint Benedict (following many other Fathers of the Church), which is a moral and spiritual significance. This ladder is the ladder that each of us climbs in the midst of trials—thanks to trials—where we merit the protection of God who comes to find us and makes us rise. Saint Benedict says that the two sides of the ladder are the soul and the body, and the rungs of the ladder are the twelve degrees of humility, which are so many degrees of holiness.
And at the very top is found the marvelous degree of filial fear: that is, of that exquisite love which fears only one thing—not loving enough, not loving as much as God gives us to love. This filial fear, which has nothing to do with servile fear, is the crowning of love.
Just now in my office, I had a young man who often spends weekends with his family, where he has no possibility of attending Mass or receiving Communion. He does have a Mass of the Fraternity of Saint Peter nearby, I believe, to which he would like to take his father; but he realized that if he takes his father to that Mass and his father takes a liking to it, it will be very difficult afterward to make him climb to the very top of Jacob’s ladder. It is not those priests, alas—who have not truly understood what is at stake in the current struggle—who will help him climb or help his father climb to the top of Jacob’s ladder. And this young man says to me: "So, Father, how shall I sanctify the Sunday?" I explained to him what Spiritual Communion is.
I explained to him that our spiritual union with God is often held back here below, and that when God wants to make someone rise toward Him, He strips them. He strips them not only of all attachment to the world, but He also strips them of all that remains too "sensible" (perceptible to the senses) in the Christian life. Now, you know that the Sacraments are sensible signs that give grace; therefore, God strips away the sensible signs to better liberate the grace.
This is what He does with the elderly. The elderly who approach Heaven—one might think God would multiply the possibilities for them to receive the Sacraments, but it is the opposite. The elderly person is confined to the house, sometimes confined to the hospital, sometimes unable even to leave their bed; they receive the visit of a priest once in a while when possible. So, does God abandon this elderly person who is near death? No, it is the opposite. He purifies them of all attachment, not only to the world, but even of all attachment to what is too sensible in the Christian life. These sensible attachments were good; they were useful because they facilitate access to the grace of God. But a moment comes when a purer, higher grace is needed—a greater intimacy with God.
And this young man, who is a pure, generous man—as young people are when they are pure, they are easily generous—he drank in my words. Like a young man who discovers God calling him to the religious life is seized with enthusiasm, he was discovering that God is calling him, perhaps not to the religious life, but to a more perfect Christian life.
God, who is at the top of the ladder, leans toward Jacob and promises to protect him; He renews His promise—evidently, the promises of the Covenant—and He promises His protection once more.
Strengthened by this, Jacob arrives at his uncle’s house, and there, I shall abridge the story. Jacob arrives at his uncle’s near a well, once again. I have already explained to you the significance of the well, which is the same as the well of the Samaritan woman, the reading of which we had today at Mass (today, Saturday). And near the well arrives Rachel. Rachel, whom Jacob immediately recognizes as a perfect Christian woman, as the woman God intends for him.
Jacob then tells Rachel’s father that he desires to marry his daughter. And Laban, who is a true rogue—even a thief, whom we shall later discover is an idolater—immediately seizes the opportunity because he also recognized in Jacob a pure, upright, and courageous man. He immediately seizes the opportunity and says: "Very well, I will give you my daughter, but you shall work seven years for me."
Seven years is a long time. Jacob fulfills his contract; he works seven years. A great wedding is held, and the day after the wedding, he discovers that his uncle has deceived him and has put in his bed not Rachel, but Rachel’s sister, the elder. So he complains to his uncle, who says: "It is the custom here; if you truly want Rachel, I will give her to you in eight days, and you shall work another seven years for me."
Jacob sees here the will of God. Poor Leah, Rachel’s sister, is not to blame; certainly, she does not have the grace of her younger sister Rachel, but since the Patriarchs had the obligation to have several wives to extend the Kingdom of God, Jacob agrees to work another seven years for the price of Rachel. At the end of fourteen years, he desires to leave, but Laban retains him this time for wages and makes him proposals—proposals that he will do everything to circuмvent. It is a complicated story: he agrees to give his nephew as wages all the sheep that are not white or black, but spotted, speckled—you see, variegated. But he arranges things to rob him.
God does not see it that way, if I may put it so; He protects Jacob. Ultimately, there are many more variegated sheep. So Laban changes the contract; he says to him: "Listen, for the next year you shall take the white sheep or the black sheep." Then God protects Jacob again, and many more white or black sheep are born. Laban changes the contract again, and this happens ten times in a row. Jacob, who is gentle, patient, and peaceful, realizes that continuing under such conditions is no longer the will of God. It is time for him to return to his father. And so he flees. He flees because God gave him the command: "Return to your father." And God says to him: "I have enriched you, for I saw well that your uncle was robbing you, and it is I who enriched you by giving you the sheep that were fitting each time."
Laban is furious and sets out in pursuit of his nephew Jacob. God intervenes with Laban, appearing to him and saying: "There is no question of you speaking harshly to your nephew." Laban was ready to put him to death, practically, and then recover the flock, daughters, and everything else. Behold, God says to him: "Not only shall you not touch him, but you shall speak to him kindly." The conversation is only just barely kind, but thanks to Jacob’s patience and his gentleness, Laban finally departs appeased.
I must hurry, as I promised not to preach too long. There remains Esau. Well, I will speak to you next time about the meeting between Jacob and Esau. It is the victory of the Church over her enemies; it is our victory over temptations, over the devil, over the accomplices of the devil. It is your victory—you who listen to me and seek to be faithful to God in the trials of today. It is not a grandiose, majestic victory to the sound of trumpets; it is much better than that. It is a victory in the manner of God; it is that which the Most Holy Virgin promised at La Salette, at Fatima, at Lourdes, and in all the apparitions God has willed in our day, which are the repetition of Jacob’s ladder and of the next stage I shall recount to you next Sunday.
May God bless you. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Topic: Fr. Pivert Sermon on Jacob (Read 76 times)