THE NEW MASS. Mons. MARCEL LEFEVRE.

 

"Destroy the Mass"

What is the crisis we are currently going through? It manifests itself, in my opinion, under four fundamental aspects for the Holy Church. It manifests itself, at first glance, I believe, and it seems to me that it is one of the most serious aspects, because, for me, if one studies the history of the Church, one realizes that the great crisis that it went through in the XVI, frightening crisis, which snatched from the holy Church, millions and millions of souls, entire regions, states in their entirety, this crisis was, more than anything, a crisis of liturgical worship;and that, if there are currently divisions among those who call themselves Christians, more than other causes must be attributed to the way of celebrating liturgical worship; and if the Protestants separated from the Church, the main reason is that the instigators of Protestantism, like Luther, said, from the very beginning:  "If we want to destroy the Church, we must destroy the Holy Mass."  This was Luther's watchword.

He had realized that, if he managed to get his hands on the Holy Mass, if he managed to reduce the Sacrifice of the Mass to a  mere meal, to a commemoration or remembrance, to a significance of the Christian community, to a remembrance or memorial of the Passion of Our Lord  and, as a consequence, if the most sacred thing in the Church were left weaker, the holiest thing that Our Lord has bequeathed us, the most sacrosanct, he would succeed in destroying the Church. And indeed, he managed, unfortunately, to snatch entire nations from the Church, working in this way.

The Mass, a sacrifice

As well. Today there is a tendency, which no one can deny, to lay hands on the Holy Mass. Things that are essential in the Holy Mass are altered. And what  are these essential things in the Holy Mass? First of all, the Holy Mass is a sacrifice. A sacrifice is not  a meal.  But, at present, they have wanted to banish even the word sacrifice. People talk about  "Eucharistic Supper, they talk about Eucharistic Communion"  ..., they talk about everything they want, as long as they don't even mention the word sacrifice, and, nevertheless, the Mass is, essentially, a sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the Cross; it is nothing else. Substantially, the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass are the same thing and the same and Only Sacrifice.

There is no other mutation than in the oblation form. Our Lord offered himself in a bloody, bloody way, on the altar of the Cross, being Himself the Priest AND the Victim. And on our altars, he offers himself, being equally the Priest and the Victim, by ministry of the priests.

The priest is only the minister consecrated by the Sacrament of Holy Orders, configured, by Character, to the Priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, offering the Sacrifice of the Mass, in the person of Christ: "in persona Christi".

The Royal Presence

If Transubstantiation is removed  from the Mass... Since I have spoken to you about Sacrifice, let us now speak of the second necessary, essential thing, which is the  Real Presence of Our Lord, in the Holy Eucharist. If Transubstantiation is removed. . . This word is of capital importance, because, by suppressing it, the real presence is omitted ,  and , therefore, there ceases to be a Victim. 

There ceases to be a Victim for the Sacrifice, and, therefore, there ceases to be a Mass. In other words:  Sacrifice ceases to exist And our Mass is vain. We are left without Mass. (It has ceased to be the Sacrifice that Our Lord gave us, in the Holy Supper and on the Cross, and that he commanded the Apostles to perpetuate on the altar). It is the second essential element. First the Sacrifice, then the Real Presence. Let us now speak of the priestly character of the minister. 

It is the priest, not the faithful

It is the priest who has received the commission, from God Our Lord, to continue the Sacrifice. And by no means the faithful.

It is true that the faithful must unite themselves to the Sacrifice, unite wholeheartedly, with all their soul, to the Victim, who is on the altar, as the priest must also do. But the faithful cannot offer, in any way, the Holy Sacrifice, "in persona Christi", like the priest.

The priest is configured to the Priesthood of Christ, he is marked forever, for eternity. "Tu es sacerdos in aeternum"... Only he can truly offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrifice of the Cross. And therefore only he can pronounce the words of Consecration.

On knees!

It is not normal for lay people to stand around the altar and say all the words of the Mass, together with the priest. Because they are not priests in the proper sense in which the consecrated priest is. Nor can we consider it normal to have suppressed all signs of respect for the  Real Presence. By dint of not seeing any respect for the Holy Eucharist, he ends up not believing in the  Real Presence. And who  will dare to approach, by, such a way, to something similar, after meditating the divine Word, according to which  "at the name of Jesus, every knee bows, in Heaven, on earth and in hell"   If at the name of Jesus we have to kneel, are we going to remain standing, when he is present in reality, in the Holy Eucharist?

The place where a sacrifice is offered is called an altar. For this reason, it is not possible to accept, as a substitute for the altar,  an ordinary table, destined for meals,  which, as Saint Paul recalled, are found in the dining rooms of the houses, to eat and drink. The altar must be a piece that does not move and where blood is offered and spilled. The moment the altar becomes a dining table, it has ceased to be an altar.

Borrowed from Protestantism

To suppress all the altars that are truly such, to put, in their place, a wooden table, in front of the altar that has been solemnly consecrated, is, precisely, to make  the notion of Sacrifice disappear,  which we have seen is of capital importance for the Church. Catholic. And it is in this way that Protestantism arrived and was consolidated. Because of this disappearance of the idea of ​​Sacrifice, the whole of England passed into schism and then into heresy.

. .. Slipping, slipping, little by little, we are going to find ourselves Protestants, without even realizing it.

The new rite of the mass is not mandatory.

Did the introduction of the Novus Ordo Missae, crowning liturgical reform, really have the supposed beneficial consequences? Or has it produced the disastrous effects that were to be foreseen? The answer to this question will make us closely examine the particular circumstances of this reform, unique of its kind in the history of the Church, and give indications about our duty for the future.

In order to judge the dogmatic and spiritual value of this reform, we must briefly recall the immutable principles of the Catholic faith regarding the essential elements  of the Holy Mass.

"In Missa offertur Deo, verum et proprium Sacrificium" (De fide divina catholica definita). ("In the Mass a true Sacrifice properly speaking is offered to God." Of divine and catholic faith defined). Whoever denied this proposition would be a heretic.

"Every sacrifice needs a priest, a victim, and a priestly action for which the victim is offered."

"In Missa et in Cruce eadem est Hostia et idem Sacerdos principalis". (De fide divina catholica definita). "In the Mass and on the Cross, the Victim and the main Priest are the same." (Of divine and catholic faith defined).

"Hostia seu Victima est ipse Christus praesens sub speciebus panis et vini" (De fide divina catholica definita). "The Oblate or Victim is Christ himself, present under the species of bread and wine." (Of divine and catholic faith defined).

It would also be heretical to deny these last two propositions.

Three realities are thus essential to the reality of the Sacrifice of the Mass:

• the priest ("Sacerdotes, íllíque soli, sunt mínístrí": de fide divina catholíca: "The priests, and they alone, are ministers"; of divine and catholic faith), who has a priestly "character";

• the real and substantial presence of the Victim, who is Christ;

• the priestly action of the sacrificial oblation, which is essentially fulfilled in the consecration.

Let us not forget that it is precisely the three fundamental truths that are denied by Protestants and modernists.

Let us not forget that, as an expression of their rejection of faith in these dogmas, their masses were changed  into "worship", at dinner or in a Eucharistic assembly,  where the reading of the Bible, the word, took place to the detriment of the offertory and the Liturgy of the Sacrifice. 

With the exception of some accidental advantages of limited importance, or rather the only advantage of reading the Epistle and the Gospel in the vernacular, it must unfortunately be said that the entire reform pays attention, directly or indirectly, to these three essential truths. of the Catholic faith. It is not, then, a liturgical reform like that of Saint Pius X, but, without a doubt, a new conception of the Mass.

Everything that is prescribed in fact by the novelties refers to this conception, closer to the Protestant than to the Catholic conception; The statements of the Protestants who contributed to this reform naively and distressingly illustrate this truth: "Protestants no longer see what would prevent them from celebrating the new Ordo", that is, there is no problem for them to celebrate the novus ordo.

One may then wonder if, as Catholic faith in the essential truths of the Mass insensibly disappears, does the validity of the Mass not disappear as well? The intention of the celebrant will conform to the new conception of the Mass, which will soon be nothing other than the Protestant one. At that time the Mass will no longer be valid.

Now, we must realize very clearly that the Mass is not only the most important religious act, but it is the source of all Catholic doctrine, the source of Faith and morality: of individual morality, of morality family and social morality. From the Sacrifice of the Cross, continued on the altar, and from nowhere else flow all the graces that allow Christian society to live and develop; to let this source dry up means to annihilate its effects.

These effects, the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which Saint Paul so eloquently describes to the Galatians (5, 22), are about to disappear from this society. All families are divided, religious orders and parishes are affected by the virus of discord; the bishops, the cardinals themselves are reached by him.

The Catholic Mass has always had the effect - and still has - of raising men to the Cross and uniting them in Our Lord Jesus Christ crucified and weakening in them the ferments of sin that engender divisions. When the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ disappears, when his Body and his Blood are no longer present among men, they will only be found around a deserted and lifeless table; nothing will unite them anymore.

Hence this discouragement and this gloomy disgust that begins to spread everywhere, hence this crisis of vocations that have no further purpose, hence this secularization and desacralization of the priest who no longer finds his reason for being, hence this appetite of the world. Because of this Protestant conception of the Holy Mass, Jesus Christ gradually abandoned the churches, which were often profaned.

The conception of this reform, the way in which it has been published with a series of modified editions, the way in which it has been made obligatory, sometimes in a tyrannical way as for example in Italy, the definition of the definition of the Mass without any consequence in the rite itself, constitute unprecedented events in the Tradition of the Roman Church, which has always proceeded "cum consilio et sapientia" (with reflection and wisdom). They authorize us to question the validity of this legislation and to act according to Canon 23: "In the case of doubt [about the validity of a law], the revocation of the preceding law is not presumed, but that subsequent laws are they must be compared with the previous ones and, as far as possible, they must be reconciled with them".

Only one absolute duty and one absolute right subsist, namely: the preservation of the Faith. And the Holy Mass is its liveliest expression and divine source; hence its paramount importance.