J.M.J.
The Rector's Letter
SPIRITUAL NARCISSISM
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
Our secret indulgence regarding ourselves is truly a poison that
surreptitiously contaminates us and leads us to the doors of death. Like
Narcissus, we like to contemplate ourselves in the reflection of our own
excellence, which exerts on us a fascination without equal. This strange
contemplation of our qualities leads us to fall into a subtle complacency
that pollutes our purest acts and sterilizes our good desires.
Pride, do you say? Of course! Who can deny it? It is the origin of all our
evils and it is as the breath of Satan exhaling its pestilential breath into
our souls. Not content with having sinned and thus rising against the
Majesty of God, we refuse to acknowledge our culpability and to fight our
sins. In the eyes of God, such a reaction is more injurious even than our
fault, because while human weakness can explain the fall, nothing - except
an act of madness - can justify our refusal to confess it. It is madness
indeed to deny what is obvious. We proudly embrace such aberration, but it
fails to disguise our profound poverty and, in the end, only reveals the
turpitude of our soul.
That wound that we carry deep within our being and that we try so
desperately to hide explains why we so often react with vehemence and
promptitude against all that conflicts with the high regard that we have of
ourselves. Our morbid over-sensitivity is only a screen behind which we want
to conceal the truth of our mediocrity. What a poor defense! We think of
protecting ourselves and we do nothing but acknowledge our weakness!
We easily take offense and we say words full of animosity under the
fallacious pretext of avenging our honor and, by doing this, we often sink
into ridicule. We must not blind ourselves, but acknowledge our congenital
indigence and destroy all our illusions of pride by laughing at them, thus
healing our inclination to morbid introspection.
But laughter is only proof of a good spirit; it cannot be enough to end this
gangrene. We must use supernatural remedies and radically turn ourselves
towards God in order to heal, in its deepest roots, the evil that
unrelentingly corrodes us. Our principal weapon remains recourse to God,
elevating our souls in a prayer of ardent demand. Grace alone will enable us
to defeat the enemy infiltrating the deepest center of our souls. We should
insistently and tirelessly ask for this grace; the evil is so rooted in us
that it cannot be eradicated by any other means. "Pray, my children, My Son
lets Himself be touched by your prayer" said Our Lady in her apparition at
Pontrnain. Let us follow this maternal warning, let us recognize our state
as mendicants and quietly expose our poverty: God alone can heal our
purulent wounds, caused by the flood of our over-sensitivity, and purify the
source of our intentions. The grace of this spiritual healing is the fruit
of prayer.
To heal us, Our Lord Jesus Christ uses means that are proportional to the
extent of the evil suffered and contradicts our corrupted nature by
beneficial but pitiless humiliations. Without the help of prayer, the
strength and understanding that it gives us, we could not carry this burden
of opprobrium in our uncertain souls and we would lose ourselves in the
meandering complications of our pride. Humiliation is a divine medicine
which requires the participation of he who suffers its bite. No one can
pride himself on having sufficient strength and lights to carry alone the
burden which rests upon his shoulders and associates him with the painful
and redeeming Cross of Our Savior. The contemplation of the Passion of
Christ introduces us into this beautiful part of the mystery of our
redemption. Incorporated into the suffering Christ, the splinters of our
humiliations become those of the Holy Tree.
May Our Lady, pure mirror of the divine simplicity, help us to undertake
this essential combat against the iniquitous incursions of our
over-sensitivity. It is a requirement of our fidelity to the teachings of
the Cross. It is also required for the survival of Tradition, which suffers
from the consequences of our ruffled susceptibilities, of this hidden pride
that destroys everything in its way.
By the grace of God, we are the heirs of the Faith of our Fathers. Let us be
also the heirs of their Christian virtues and carry in our souls this
specific mark of humility that defeats the devil and preserves us from
falling into hell.
May you have a good and holy year, in Christo sacerdote ei Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux
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>From "The Rector's Letter" - Jan. 2007 (http://www.stas.org/)
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"Pray and work for souls"
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