Scripture calls us pilgrims, strangers, aliens, and sojourners. Our life on earth is an exile and we are on a journey to our home in heaven.
My spiritual search began in a small Protestant charismatic fellowship and now, decades later, has led me to Traditional Catholicism. In between those two experiences have been many crossroads concerning doctrine and theology.
With Protestantism having several thousand denominations, sometimes the options felt overwhelming. Then came the fork in the road: Protestantism or Conciliar Catholicism.
Once inside Catholicism, other crossroads gradually emerged for me: Hermeneutic of continuity or hermeneutic of rupture? Novus Ordo or the Traditional Latin Mass? Amoris Laetitia — orthodox of heterodox? Benedict XVI’s resignation — valid or invalid?
Jesus often rebuked his disciples for being slow to learn and hard of heart. I confess to both of those.
I sometimes think about what advice I would give a Catholic just beginning their search for truth, other than a gentle nudge to submit to the beliefs and practices of the pre-conciliar Church. I have my convictions about what specific forks they should choose but what about some of the general principles that should guide their quest?
Join the Counter-Revolution: Donate to Integrity Magazine today!
The poorly catechized and the biblically illiterate will struggle in these times. Hosea declared that God’s people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6) and Jerome said that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. A certain earnestness and diligence are therefore required. As the prophet says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me and find me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13).
Humility is also a necessary starting point for our theological sojourner. Humility means that we recognize that without God, we are nothing, can do nothing, and know nothing. Whereas God “scatter[s] the proud in the imagination of their hearts” (Lk. 1:51), “he leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way” (Ps. 25:9).
God thus opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (I Pet. 5:5). Our pilgrim will need grace to make the right decision at the crossroad.
Sacrificing all for Christ
Anyone searching for truth in these times should be aware of the costs associated with it. I know two men who were unwilling to make the transition to Traditional Catholicism because their wives were against it. Several friends of mine during my conciliar days now see me as radioactive. If you want to follow where the Truth leads and keep all your old friends and have no discord in your family, this road is not for you. A kind of white martyrdom is often bound up with the quest for truth.
Aside from division with friends and family, there may be a two-hour drive, one-way, to the nearest Latin Mass awaiting those who pursue Christ. Of course, some may have a shorter drive but that could be to a backwater town for a once-a-month, mid-afternoon Mass in a musty, older church building. All of this, mind you, while Traditiones custodes essentially tell you you are a red-headed step-child and while Bergoglio mocks you for being “rigid” and attached too “grandma’s lace” while breeding “like rabbits.”
The Dispatch
On top of that, if you are a bishop, priest, or “lay adherent” within the SSPX, you are excommunicated because you “took all possible care,” as St. Vincent of Lerins says, to “hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.” In other words, you have been damned to eternal fire because you embrace the beliefs and practices of the first nineteen-and-a-half centuries of the Church.
How to persevere
Different virtues are required to meet the challenges of going through a white martyrdom. These come from God, through the Mediatrix of all Graces, and are being formed right now in the greatest saints at the end of the age.
Fortitude will give us the endurance to make the long drive to a Latin Mass and the grace not to complain about other inconveniences. Patience and charity gives us the grace to accept the rejection that results from broken relationships with former friends and family members without resentment and bitterness.
Perfect charity, meanwhile, casts out fear (I Jn. 4:18). Because our hearts are filled with charity for God and others, we do not fear the negative consequences that happen as a result of following Christ.
Moreover, faith and hope help us live in the light of eternity. We gladly sacrifice temporal advantages to store up heavenly treasure in obedience to the deposit of the faith.
Read More: Gaudium et Spes gave birth to the Conciliar Church of Man
Justice means giving God His due. He is worthy of our obedience despite the trials that come our way.
All of these virtues, including temperance, help us slay effeminacy, sloth, and cowardice. These vices help us understand how, out of more than 400 active and retired bishops in the USCCB, only Joseph Strickland firmly and consistently spoke against the heresies of Jorge Bergoglio.
Many prelates didn’t want to do the hard thing (effeminacy) back then, or put in the work (sloth). They also had an inordinate fear of the consequences of raising their voice (cowardice). These vices played a major role in the Arian crisis and in the days of Henry VIII.
Now, many lay faithful see the elephant in the room but talk themselves out of it. I did this for years with Bergoglio and Prevost and those who claimed they were Antipopes. I would say to myself:
“An assertion like that is above my pay-grade. I’m just a layman. This is something to be decided by a consistory of Cardinals after the ‘Pope’ has passed on. It’s a very complex and nuanced issue requiring special training. As they say, ‘Don’t try this at home.’”
But in saying this. I was denying obvious truths about Benedict XVI’s resignation and how he conducted himself as a “Pope Emeritus.” Inescapable logic was also denied, for if Bergoglio promoted heresy and didn’t defer to the Magisterium, then he wasn’t Catholic. And if he wasn’t Catholic, then he could not be Pope!
In these times, denial is the road most travelled and seems to be adding new travelers at an exponential rate. In contrast, Our Lady is and will be giving birth to a generation of St. Catherine of Sienas who are not afraid to speak the truth, stand alone, and unite their sufferings to the cross of Christ. Let us put ourselves under her mantle so we can remain steadfast to Our Lord and patiently endure the white martyrdom we are being asked to suffer.
