District Newsletter – August 2008

My Dear Brethren,

I think that by now most of you are aware that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais will be visiting Australia very soon and will visit several of our churches and administer confirmation as follows:

Monday 8th September – Sydney:  Confirmations and Mass at  6.30pm

Friday 12th - Goulburn:  Subdiaconate and Mass at  9.30am

Sunday 14th – Brisbane:  Confirmations and Mass at  9.30am

Tuesday 16th - Mackay:  Confirmations and Mass at  6.30pm

Thursday 18th - Hampton:  Mass at  6.15pm

Saturday 20th – Tynong:  Confirmations and Mass at  9.00am

Sunday 21st - Adelaide:  Confirmations and Mass at  9.00am

Tuesday 23rd - Perth:  Confirmations and Mass at  6.00pm

It has already been several years since we have had the privilege of a visit of Bishop Tissier to our country and we welcome him wholeheartedly.  I do hope that you will be able to assist in large numbers at the above events.

Most certainly you will also know that several changes to the priests’ appointments have taken place recently.

Father Wailliez has already left Australia for Europe where he has taken up his new duties as the Superior of our Society in Belgium and Holland.  We are most grateful to him for his dedicated work as Principal of St. Philomena School at Park Ridge.  Many improvements have been made during the two years which he spent there, most notably his initiative in taking the preliminary steps to establish a High School.  At present our proposals are being considered by the Education Department of Queensland and I ask you to pray for a successful outcome.  The old chapel which was recently transported to the school site has now been completely renovated as a result of the dedicated work of Mr. Jeff Madson and very tastefully decorated.  This charming building has greatly enhanced the visual impact of the school site.

Father Arthur has replaced Father Wailliez as the Principal of St. Philomena’s, having spent the last year at St. Thomas Aquinas College at Tynong where he had responsibility for the administration of the Junior School.  Father Taouk has returned to Australia after having spent a year in South Africa and Zimbabwe and has in his turn replaced Father Arthur at Tynong.  You will, no doubt, also have read in the “Southern Sentinel” that Father Griego has replaced Father Scott as Seminary Rector at Goulburn.  Please pray for all these priests that God may abundantly bless their apostolate.

It was resolved, at the General Chapter of the Society which took place in July 2006, to present a Spiritual Bouquet of one million rosaries to the Pope in October of the same year. You will remember it was the principal intention of the recitation of these rosaries that the Pope should allow the traditional Mass to be celebrated without restriction throughout the universal Church.  Such was the enthusiasm engendered by this proposal that, in the event, two and a half million rosaries were in fact presented!

Our Lady was not slow to hear our prayers, for merely six months later, the Pope issued his now-famous Motu Proprio which, although not entirely unexpected, was astonishingly generous in its terms when one considers the incredibly severe restrictions on the celebration of the Mass which had preceded it.  The provisions of this legislation came into effect almost a year ago on the 14th September.  It must be admitted that the optimistic hopes expressed by some for a widespread celebration of the Mass has scarcely come to fruition due to the apathy or hostility of the vast majority of the clergy of the world but the Motu Proprio remains a highly significant milestone in the history of the Church since the Second Vatican Council.

In view of the above, Bishop Fellay has asked that a perpetual Rosary Crusade be launched.  The intention this time is that the “excommunication” of our four bishops incurred on the day of their consecration twenty years ago should now be lifted.  Unlike the previous Spiritual Bouquet a specific number of rosaries is not requested but rather that five decades be recited daily for this intention.  As this will be going on all over the world the idea is that prayer will be offered incessantly day and night for this intention.  By a marvellous disposition of Providence this crusade is launched in the 150th anniversary year of the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes and indeed the Society is organising an international pilgrimage to this shrine which all four bishops will attend at the end of October on the weekend of Christ the King.  Not many of us will be able to travel to the other side of the world for this event but we will certainly be able to join in spirit, particularly by fervently taking up Bishop Fellay’s invitation to this crusade of prayer.

Here in Australia the Crusade will officially begin on the first day of October, the month of the Holy Rosary, although of course, we may start immediately.  In practice, we should make up our minds to recite the rosary daily, at a specific time if possible.  If we already say the rosary each day we may offer this or recite an additional five decades for the intention of the Crusade.  The time of day of the recitation is not crucial so if we are unable to discharge our commitment at that given time any other hour will suffice.  As many other people in the different time zones of the world will be joining in the Crusade, the prayer will remain uninterrupted.  In order to make a tangible expression of our commitment and gauge the numbers of souls who are responding to the call we invite you to inscribe your names on the sheets which will be available shortly at each of our churches.  This, of course, is taken as an expression of our devout intention and does not place us under any moral obligation.

The putative excommunication; the de facto abolition of the Mass; the hostility shown towards those who would take their religion seriously; the general apathy towards religious matters; the quasi-universal indifference towards Almighty God; the banality and ugliness of the worship which is His due, are all symptoms of the sickness of the Christian world and the revival of a society which is essentially pagan in its values.  Already fifty years ago, on the occasion of the centenary of the Lourdes apparitions, Pope Pius XII wrote the following words which are now more relevant than ever:

“In a society which is barely conscious of the ills which assail it, which conceals its miseries and injustices beneath a prosperous, glittering, and trouble-free exterior, the Immaculate Virgin, whom sin has never touched, manifests herself to an innocent child.  With a mother’s compassion she looks upon this world redeemed by her Son’s Blood, where sin accomplishes so much ruin daily, and three times makes her urgent appeal: “Penance, penance, penance!”……Materialism is present in the unrestrained search for pleasure, which flaunts itself shamelessly and tries to seduce souls which are still pure.  It shows itself in lack of interest in one’s brother, in selfishness which crushes him, in a judicial system which deprives him of his rights – in a word, in that concept of life which regulates everything exclusively in terms of material prosperity and earthly satisfactions……. To a society which in its public life often contests the supreme rights of God, to a society which would gain the whole world at the expense of its own soul and thus hasten its own destruction, the Virgin Mother has sent a cry of alarm!”  (Encyclical Le Pelerinage de Lourdes 1958).

With every good wish and blessing,

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Father Edward Black – Superior