:argue: :argue:Dear Cathinfo,
My New Novus Ordo priest has told me that now that I understand why the SSPX are wrong that I am legally obligated not to take the sacraments from them. I no longer attend Mass with my parents or brothers. I did sort of understand why at the time he was explaining it all to me but I know that I can't persuade my parents. It is really frustrating because he went up to my parents house and still did not convert them. He says that they must want the truth and that they are not ready for it yet. He has told my grandmother who is intelligent enough but she cannot articulate the arguments with them either despite trying for the past 4 years. I am worried that I can no longer obey the 4th commandment and that it will keep me in sin. I have told the priest that they are weird (girls are not allowed to wear trousers) and cruel (they do not allow people to talk to the younger students just because they are atheists) My new priest knows that they are regarded as ultra conservative crackpots.
Please pray for me and my family
FirstAid
I'll assume it's genuine -
FirstAid. The
very worst thing you can possibly do if you are having doubts about Tradition and tempted to return to the Novus Ordo (and holding the fort all on your own can be hard work) is to consult a Modernist. The doubts and the despair come from the Devil. He wants more than anything to drag faithful Catholics who cling to the True Mass into Hell. It's exactly like Cranmer and the English protestants - the Devil will tell us we are all alone, and how can we possibly be right. He will tell us that the collected weight of modern 'scholarship' and the whole movement of the world says that we are wrong. The mocking tirades of the Modernists (we are 'weird' etc) won't stop. The old Bishop of London, Goldwell, and Feckenham the Abbot of Westminster (in the Tower in Elizabeth's reign) had to listen to the daily harangue of a Puritan chaplain, who could, like the Devil, 'twist Scripture to his own purposes'. They remained faithful, these two frail old men, to a Faith mocked and ridiculed daily by broadsheet and pamphlet (I remember a cartoon in the 'Tablet' with the caption 'Tridentine Catholicism? Does sir want that in hardback or straitjacket?') Don't read 'em.
If we are wrong, then St. Peter was wrong, then St. Pius V was wrong, then St. Pius X was wrong. If we are wrong the Church taught error for 1900 years until Vatican II. That's exactly what the Protestants say - that the Church taught error until a low fornicating monk and a traitor to his vows (Luther) corrected it! We have 1962 years of Holy Tradition on our side, and every Saint. The Modernists cannot be right - they can have the upper hand for a day; and more than a day, but what was true at Trent and Vatican I is true today.
You were right, your parents and grandparents are right - in the SSPX you were right, you had the True Mass, the True Sacraments, True, unchanging Catholic doctrine. Think of St. Athanasius - almost every other Bishop taught that Our Blessed Lord was a man. A created, mortal man. He remained loyal to the Faith - that Our Lord is wholly God and wholly Man. Think of the English Catholic recusants, who kept the Faith by hiding chasubles underneath floorboards and smuggling in priests at night to say Mass amongst an alien and Protestant people. For God's sake, and I do not say this lightly, for God's sake keep to Tradition!
Do not take the easy way! How does the Devil winkle trads out of Tradition'? Emotionalism. Wouldn't it be nice if I did not have to drive one/two/three hours to Mass? The fact one is very often holding the fort on your own - it would be easier to accept either the Indult or the Novus Ordo in a 'ritualised' form (the 'reform of the reform')* and quietly put the Crisis to one side.
Good grief, God forgive me, I have done it. If you don't act as you think, you start to think as you act.You will careen slowly into Modernism. You can see it in the FSSP and ICRSS. They've lain down the sword. I hear they've accepted the Novus Ordo and assist at a Novus Ordo Chrism Mass. It was inevitable. First, you're afraid of 'insulting the Pope' who, 'so graciously gave us the Indult'/received us into 'full communion' (you were never outside the Church) or thinking that 'the Pauline Mass [note the pseudo-traditional shift in terminology] isn't so bad - it's only abused. This is how it was meant to be offered'. Right-ho.
Hermeneutic of continuity alert! You've already accepted Vatican II as inherently good and it's a downward slide from there - every Conciliar error can be explained away. You've accepted Modernism. I've said it before, it's a hermeneutic of self-delusion. You've abandoned the terms of the battle - Tradition versus the Council - , so now you can convince yourself that every Modernist heresy can be explained away or simply ignored.
I'm not suggesting, God forbid, Holy Church has defected, but look at Cranmer. Michael Davies made the comparison. Now the Modernist heretics, unlike most heretics, have not declared a new 'church'. They're quite content ravaging and subverting the Church Militant on Earth (which is why they are so pernicious - it's heresy inside the Church). Cranmer's 'sonorous prose' Protestantized England by repetition and by acceptance for the sake of peace. Catholic-minded men who hated Protestantism contented themselves with the little rituals and solemnities of 'High Church' Anglicanism - dare I say the little rituals and solemnities remaining in the 'reform of the reform'? and so lost the Faith.
Topic: My Novus Ordo Priest has told me to not to discuss why with SSPX (Read 8035 times)