Let it be with alacrity that we enter this holy Lenten season, happy that we have been chosen to fight the combat of the Faith. For Lent is not just a time to make a little sacrifice here and there. It is a time to embrace with generosity the spiritual combat, to strive for our sanctification, to ask for fidelity to divine grace, to put "on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil…that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect" (Eph 6:11, 13).

We all long for Rome to come to its senses and for the crisis to come to an end, for Tradition to regain its recognition as the expression of the true Catholic Faith and life. But we seldom make the connection with our Lent, and our spiritual lives. Saint Paul, to the contrary, shows how courage in this combat for the Church is intimately linked up with the convictions of our Faith and the fervor of our spiritual life. This is the combat: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places" (Eph 6:12). He spoke of pagans outside the Church, but alas, the words could just as easily be applied to the neo-paganism of religious indifferentism that has become a way of life since Vatican II. For the freemasonic ideal of the universal brotherhood of all peoples and religions is not fundamentally different from the Roman empire’s absorption of all the gods of the peoples that it conquered. Placing all religions and cultures on an equal level in the formation of this brotherhood, it effectively denies the divinity of Christ and the divine institution of the One True Church.

Yet this is precisely how Pope John Paul II began his message to begin this new year and millennium. He called for people to be "inspired by the ideal of a truly universal brotherhood…proclaimed in the great ‘charters’ of human rights…embodied in…the United Nations" and calling for "the process of globalization" (§1). Such pacificism as a formula of peace is at the direct antipodes of the Lenten and Catholic spirit. The promotion of "a greater sense of human brotherhood and a more fraternal life together" (Ib.) as an answer to human conflict is pure naturalism, that we might become "men and women capable of solidarity, peace and love of life, with respect for everyone" (Ib. §22). It is the radical failure to see the origin of all human conflict: original sin and its four wounds of ignorance, malice, weakness and concupiscence. We know, to the contrary, that true peace is only possible for one who is willing to courageously enter into the battle, to fight against these wounds and his dominant fault, and thus attain to the tranquillity of order in his own soul. Lent is the test of our courage in the combat.

Saint Paul continues, explaining the importance of conviction: "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth…in all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one" (Eph 6:14, 16). It is a well known fact, verified repeatedly in the history of the Church, that a Catholic cannot defend the Faith without fighting against the poisoned arrows of heresy, without standing up against falsehood. The modern tendency to Irenism (a Greek word meaning "peace at all costs") was clearly condemned by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical against the modern errors Humani Generis. Yet it is essential to the masonic notion of universal brotherhood that Pope John Paul II seems to have embraced.

Saint Paul likewise demonstrates the crucial role that fervent prayer, that a true interior life, has to play in our attitude towards the world: "By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints" (Eph 6:18). Here then is the true scriptural Lenten formula: courage, conviction and prayer. St. Paul would not want us to think how alike we are to the rest of the world by some kind of naturalistic universal brotherhood, but in fact how different we must be from the rest of the world. As he points out from his prison cell in Rome, this is in fact what the mystery of our Redemption is all about. We are set aside, called in a profoundly supernatural way: "Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself; according to the purpose of his will: Unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he hath graced us in his beloved Son" (Eph 1:5, 6).

The martyrs of the early centuries understood the importance of courage, conviction and prayer, so much so that they did not hesitate to give their lives rather than offer incense to the idols, and enter into the universal brotherhood of the pagan religion of the empire. Courage started to wain after peace was granted to the Church, when respectability replaced persecution and human respect replaced fortitude. It was the era of compromise of the Trinitarian and Christological heresies, starting with Arianism. Such was also the case with the Renaissance, with the resurgence of neopagan culture being the means for the brotherhood with the world. The combat of the Counter Reformation was the Catholic response, and was accompanied by a true spiritual renewal, with an abundance of saints and religious communities. The same could have happened with Modernism, at the beginning of the 20th century, except that the counter anti-modernist resistance was short lived, and, after the death of Saint Pius X, half-hearted. Combat and courage were not the order of the 20th century for the simple reason that there was not the sanctity, the spiritual heroism of the preceding centuries.

Hence the paradox of a Pope leading into the 21st century, into the third millennium, with the most-unholy program of a universal brotherhood: a crisis of greater magnitude than Arianism, than the Renaissance, than the Reformation, for the freemasons have succeeded in their plan of infiltrating their ideas into the very seat of Peter. Let us not think that there is any other answer than that of courage, conviction and prayer, or as prescribed by Our Lady in Fatima: prayer and penance, and in particular the so-Catholic prayer of the Rosary. Let us offer our daily Rosary to sanctify ourselves, that each of us might have heroic courage and conviction, and we can be confident about the victory of Tradition. We do not know when or how, and we cannot expect that recent overtures by Rome will actually bring this about.

However, you can be absolutely certain that the Society of Saint Pius X will not compromise, nor deviate from the path laid out by our holy founder. If we acknowledge John Paul II as the Pope, pray for his intentions and profess unity with him, it is only inasmuch as he is the successor of Peter, inasmuch as he teaches the doctrines of the Church, inasmuch as he bears magisterial authority, inasmuch as he upholds Tradition. This is the unity of the Church, of which he is the figure, but which he represents so poorly, for he often contradicts it in his personal behavior and ideas. In this, we are most assuredly not one with him, nor inasmuch as he allows the disorder of heresy, indifferentism and naturalism to infect the life of the Church, nor inasmuch as he undermines the unity of the Mass, sacraments, and supernatural life by embracing the false universal brotherhood of man. With this there will be neither agreement nor silence.

How better to inspire us towards this courage and conviction than to remind ourselves of Our Lord’s priestly prayer, after the Last Supper, in which he explained the basis of true unity: "They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth…And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified in truth…that they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee…I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and the world may know that thou hast sent me…" (Jn 17:16-23). Let this Lent be a time of prayer, spiritual reading, sacrifice. Remember, no worldly amusements, no television, but family prayers, and daily Mass for all those who can.

Yours faithfully in Jesus, Mary and Joseph,