May 29, 2005

Our great Holy Father Pope John Paul II died at a most auspicious time. He died on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday in the year of the Holy Eucharist, which he had proclaimed. I feel sure he had no personal premonition of his death at that time when he established these two observances to encourage the devotion and faith of the Catholic people. One of the things that is very observable in the church as one looks at the situation in the United States is that the church is thriving where there is an active devotional life encouraged by bishops and priests. On the other hand, where all kinds of devotion - including the appropriate honoring of the holy Eucharist - has declined, there is a real lack of vitality in the church.

In a recent article in the New Yorker Magazine called A Hard Faith, Peter Boyer gives an excellent review of what has gone on and what is going on in the Catholic Church at the present time. Our friends would do very well to try to get hold of that article in the May 16 th issue of the New Yorker. Boyer refers to us as traditionalists, which is not the best term. However, he does say this - “evidence for the traditionalists’ argument that those corners of the Church which cling to tradition have fared better, even prospered, tends to be anecdotal . . . however it seems clear that some conservative religious orders have suffered no shortage of vocations or callings to serve the Church.”

Boyer then gives the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Renewal as an example. Father Bernard Murphy is quoted as saying of the new friars, “They are very idealistic. They want the real thing and so they’ll search for it wherever they can find it.” He also quotes Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, “the more you present Christ faithfully, the more they’re going to come, young people particularly are very responsive; they don’t want a watered down version.”

Try to get hold of this excellent article. It gives you an explanation of why the CFR’s are doing well and long-established orders are dying away. How long is it going to take our people to realize that if you love Christ and show him honor in the Most Blessed Sacrament and in all of the other mysteries, God will bless you. It also proves that unless the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain that build it.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR

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