Letter from the Superior General to friends and benefactors n. 93
Mitte operarios in messem tuam.
Send labourers into Thy harvest.
My dear faithful, friends and benefactors,
In a few days’ time, a new Jubilee Year will begin for the Catholic Church. I hope that many of you will gather with us in Rome, on 20th August 2025. There, we shall bear witness to our faith – a faith that we have received from the Church through her Tradition. This is our living faith that we have a duty to pass on, exactly as we have received it, free from any compromise with the spirit of the world.
May this jubilee also be a testimony of hope, especially in regards to the future of the Catholic Church and its indefectibility! Indeed, if we are deeply attached to the Rome as it was, we must be intimately concerned for the Church of tomorrow. Obviously, we know Christ’s promise that He will be with Her until the end of time, despite the attacks of the devil. However, we must understand that this promise necessarily implies our participation. Our Blessed Lord is counting on our efforts – prompted and nourished by His grace, so as to guarantee the Church’s indefectibility.
In concrete terms, what efforts does Our Blessed Lord expect us to make to ensure the future of the Church? They can be summed up as our collective efforts to nurture numerous priestly and religious vocations. Popes and saints have never ceased to remind us: People can only be holy if they have a holy clergy, and likewise, a civilisation will become Christian once more only if it is sanctified by holy religious. Our concern for the Church of tomorrow means doing everything in our power to nurture, to encourage and to sustain these vocations.
Heroic witnesses of Jesus Christ
Who can say enough about what tomorrow’s priests and religious are called to be? His Grace, Archbishop Lefebvre put it succinctly when addressing his seminarians:
“Today is the time of heroes! When everything seems to disappear in the structure of society, and even in the structure of the Church, the time is not for lukewarm souls, or for souls who give way to confusion or doubts circulating throughout the world – including doubts about the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as is the case even within the Catholic Church. Today is the time for those who believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, and those who believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ, through His Cross, provided the solution to all the personal problems in our lives.”[1]
What the current situation of our world calls for, is a generation of priests and religious (both men and women) who bear witness to Our Lord Jesus Christ – even against all odds. For this world that is half-dead, we need a generation who will bear witness to the all-powerful redemptive force that is found in Our Lord Jesus Christ, and only in Him. We need a generation who will bear witness to this truth through their words, without fear or deviation, and even more so through their lives, lived according to His rule and His love. This will be a generation in which each person, in his or her own way, will be – as Pope Pius XII declared – “a living image of our Saviour”[2].
A light for the world
People can sometimes be frightened by the storms that are sweeping the world, and that are shaking it all the more, as it moves further away from God. Therefore, in union with Our Blessed Lord, who calmed the hearts of his apostles even before he calmed the waves, we would like to say to them: do not be afraid[3]. The power of a storm is a sign of the even greater power of the lighthouse, which never ceases to shine and to guide us to a safe haven.
I am the light of the world.[4] To follow Christ, such is the essence of the Church. Thus, such also will be Her ministers and religious, provided that they remain grounded and rooted in charity, and if Jesus Christ dwells in their hearts through faith.[5] With Saint Paul, they will be able to say: For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, […] nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord[6].
Therefore, far from being frightened by the darkness, they will overcome it by the light they bring with them. From the humble classroom where a religious sister teaches children, all the way through to the pulpit where the priest delivers his sermon, through them the Church will continue to strengthen souls, lift up hearts and enlighten the world. From the silent cloister to the darkness of the confessional, the Catholic Church will pour out Christ’s peace in abundance upon souls – and very soon upon cities as well. Let there be no doubt: Our world, which is increasingly entangling itself each day in its self-destructive logic, is also thirsting for this light that contains both truth and charity.
“Francis, go and repair my house, which is falling into ruin.” Thus were the words of the Crucified Christ to the young Francis of Assisi. To spread this divine light over a darkened world, and to communicate the life of Our Blessed Lord to souls, we need souls who are ready to give testimony to the truth[7] – whether it be before the High Priest or before Pontius Pilate. Admittedly, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church, and the divisive devil has transformed himself into an angel of light[8]. Yet, let us make no mistake: The serious doctrinal and moral aberrations of the men of the Church, which is in full decay, herald sooner or later the death of the modernist utopia.
A militia all fired up
The victory of Our Blessed Lord and the Immaculate Heart of Mary will therefore come through the radiance of the consecrated life, lived fully and completely, and therefore through a holy militia of priestly and religious vocations, choosing to renounce everything so as to follow Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Obviously, these heroic and luminous witnesses will need great strength of soul and noble virtues. Animated by a spirit of faith as firm as it is profound, they will need to be incapable of compromising with evil or error, and at the same time, they will need to be filled with meekness and charity.
These conquerors will succeed only to the extent that they are on fire with the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They must be ablaze with zeal and entirely dedicated to the good of the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre reminded his seminarians: “You will have to be heroes, saints and martyrs – martyrs in the sense of witnesses to the Catholic faith. You will be criticised on all sides, but encouraged by the example of those who have given their life and their blood for their faith. You will also be strengthened by the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and with her help you will accomplish this work - for your own sanctification and for the sanctification of souls”[9].
It is this new generation of priests and religious (both men and women) who must be awakened, and without whom Divine Providence will lack the means to carry out its work of salvation. Therefore, we must ask ourselves: How can we achieve this?
A gift to implore from God
As we know from the word itself, a vocation is a gift from God. God alone calls: Neither doth any man take this honour to himself, but he that is called by God.[10] God alone breathes His grace into souls – and a priestly or religious vocation is a very special grace, a very precious grace.
Such a grace, however, has to be asked for. Such a gift depends on our prayers. Our Blessed Lord reminds us: The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers into His harvest[11]. The more precious the gift, the more insistent must be the prayer. However, is this truly the case concerning our prayers for vocations? It is to be feared that we sometimes spend more time lamenting the evil than imploring God for the remedies… If we are truly convinced that only holy vocations will restore the Church, and thus also the world, and if we truly want the work of Our Blessed Lord’s Redemption to triumph once again in our time, then we must ask ever more insistently and perseveringly for many holy vocations, by redoubling our supplications.
Like the righteous people of the Old Testament who longed eagerly for the coming of the Saviour, we must implore Heaven to send in our present time “true images of God’s love” and “living examples of Jesus Christ”, or in other words, others like Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio, Theresa of Avila or Catherine of Siena, and many holy priests to dispense to souls the “precious pearl, the inexhaustible riches of the blood of Jesus Christ”[12].
This is certainly the most urgent request of our time. We know that God will not abandon His Church, and that He wants to give our age the saints it needs. However, He will do so, only insofar as we ask Him with as much insistence as humility. This is precisely the hope and the prayer that we want to bring to Rome on the occasion of the Jubilee Year. This is the reason why we have chosen as the theme for our pilgrimage: “Mitte operarios in messem tuam – Send labourers into Thy harvest”[13].
A legion to be born!
However, we do not wish to limit such a cause to the short hours of our jubilee prayer. On the contrary, we would like this concern for vocations to live within all of us throughout the years to come. This must be first and foremost in our prayers, obviously, but also in the zeal that each one of us will deploy to this end. All of us have to work for this great cause: priests, without a doubt, by their example and their supernatural enthusiasm; but also fathers and mothers! For it is with the zeal that they will unleash for the development and sanctification of their families that tomorrow’s vocations depend. Pope Pius XI so perfectly summarised this when he said that “the first and most natural place where the flowers of the sanctuary should almost spontaneously grow and bloom, remains always the truly and deeply Christian family”[14]. We will come back to these thoughts in greater detail in a future letter to you.
Make no mistake about our intentions. We are launching a project that will last for years! That is why we wish to place it most particularly under the protection of Our Lady of Sorrows. Already through her fiat of the Annunciation, her virginal womb became the first cathedral where the Word Himself, taking on our human nature, received the anointing that made Him the Consecrated One of God, and established the new priesthood… Then, at the foot of the Cross, Jesus entrusted to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary the priesthood of Saint John, establishing her, through the beloved apostle, as Mother of all priests. Thus, through her compassion, and the sufferings of Calvary, which she intimately united to the sufferings of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lady gave birth to the Church of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
It is to her, then, that we must direct our urgent prayers. Let us confidently implore her to grant us the vocations that we so desperately need. In very concrete terms: Let us tirelessly use the powerful weapon of the most holy rosary. Throughout this Jubilee Year, which will begin on 24th December 2024 and end on 6th January 2026, let us conquer Heaven with a continual supplication of fervent rosaries for vocations. We will not try to keep count of them, nor do we wish to limit their number. However, we are counting on the determination of each and every one of us to devote this Holy Year to the fruitful recitation of the rosary. We are counting, in particular, on the prayers of the children in our families and schools – and on their sacrifices too! This is why we urge their parents and teachers to do everything possible to help these children to be enormously generous.
Then, on 20th August 2025, we shall be able to solemnly lay at the feet of Our Blessed Lady an incalculable number of rosaries and sacrifices, as a tribute of our gratitude and humble trust in the power of her maternal intercession. May we thus, under her guidance, all work towards the blossoming of the many holy vocations that will make the Church of tomorrow holy!
I wish you all – and all your families – a very holy and blessed Christmas.
May God bless you!
Menzingen, 20th December 2024
Don Davide Pagliarani, Superior General
[1] Sermon, Ecône, 7th January 1973.
[2] Encyclical Menti Nostræ.
[3] Jn. 6:20.
[4] Jn. 8:12.
[5] Rom. 8:38-39.
[6] Cf. Eph. 3:17.
[7] Jn. 18:37.
[8] 2 Cor. 11:14.
[9] Sermon, Ecône, 21st May 1983.
[10] Heb. 5:4.
[11] Mt. 9:37-38.
[12] Pius XII, Encyclical Menti Nostræ.
[13] Missale Romanum, Votive Mass to ask for priestly vocations.
[14]Encyclical Ad Catholici sacerdotii.
(Source: General House – FSSPX.News)
