19 March 1977 Dear Friends and Benefactors, We are going on with our work and with God’s
blessing we will continue to go on, for Tradition cannot cease to
transmit Revelation until the end of time. God has revealed Himself
to us in Our Lord Jesus Christ. This Revelation is today what it was
in the past and what it will always be. We must receive it such as it
has been given to us. The Revelation was brought to an end with the last
of the Apostles in order that we might fix our gaze on Jesus Who is
“the author and finisher of faith” (Heb. 12: 2). Saint Paul summarises this Revelation which he
himself also received in these words: “I judged not myself to know
anything among you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (I Cor.
2:2). The Cross of Jesus summarises the whole of our faith
and therefore the whole of our conduct, all of our attitudes, our
interior and exterior life. It not only teaches us the truths
necessary for our salvation, but also the way to salvation and the
combat, which must be waged to achieve it. It shows the way to wage
this combat against all that is opposed to our salvation, whether it
be within or around us. The Cross is therefore the leaven and the law
of Christian civilisation which is that of the salvation of souls by
Jesus crucified. To attempt to diminish in one way or another the
teachings revealed by the Cross under the pretext of the historical
development of society, of historical conscience, evolution, etc. is
to close the way of salvation and deliver men up to other men, with
no divine hope, light or life. It is to make this world the
antechamber of hell. This is what is being prepared for us by the
elimination of any idea of combat against error due to religious
liberty, or against atheism, laicism, and communism. Likewise by an
ecumenism which delivers the Church into the hands of her enemies,
and lack of opposition to sin by wiping out law in favor of
conscience. This new attitude of the Church authorities is a
negation of the Cross of Our Lord. To ask us to follow this attitude,
which lay under the surface during the Council, and which is clearly
expressed in the reforms and practice of the Conciliar Church, is as
much as to ask us to deny Christ crucified. We cannot do so . By the grace of God our seminarians and young
priests understand these things well and do not wish to abandon the
crucified Jesus either. They demonstrate this by their dress, their
daily lives and their preaching: but essentially and above all by the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Once again this year we have numerous candidates for
the seminary and our novitiates to the Brotherhood and Sisterhood.
The number of our houses continues to multiply as we now have one in
the province of Quebec in Canada and another in Geneva. To satisfy
all the requests for priests which we receive it would be necessary
to ordain a hundred a year! This year, God willing, fourteen priests
and twenty sub-deacons will be ordained. Five brothers as well as
five nuns will receive the habit. Three of the sisters will make
their profession. We hope that we will soon be able to announce that
the foundations of the seminary chapel at Ecône have been laid! This
will be a very important enterprise. We know that we can count on you
to help the seminary with a chapel worthy of the honour and adoration
that we must give to Our Lord. Above all we must pray and do penance to ask Our
Lord, by the intercession of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, to
deliver Holy Church from those who wish at all costs to ruin her and
arrive at the great apostasy. In gratitude for all that you are doing in favour or
our work for a true renovation of the Church, may God bless you! +Marcel Lefebvre
Letter
to Friends and Benefactors
Feast of St. Joseph.
