Our Lady versus the Antichrist
We must always have hope, for even in the time of the Antichrist, the victory will belong ultimately to Our Lord and Our Lady.
Pastor's Corner for Sunday, December 15
We offer here for some extracts from Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel’s article, "Our Lady in the Time of the Antichrist".
After describing the distressful years of war (WWI), Fr. Calmel explains the troubles and hopes of the soldiers ready for the front.
How many men, having buckled up their belt, left with the horrible certitude that they were to perish in that infernal whirlwind, without ever seeing the victory; sometimes, even, a doubt troubled their minds as to the worth of their leaders and of their orders.
Yet, on one thing they were without a doubt, and that was on the spiritual authority of their chaplain. The priest who tended the care of the Fatherland till death would have never dreamed of producing some strange pastoral innovation of the Holy Mass which he celebrated according the ancient rites and words. He celebrated with a piety so much the more profound that all, priest unarmed and soldiers in arms, could be called before God’s judgment.
The fidelity of the priest rested peacefully upon the fidelity of the hierarchy which protected the Christian doctrine and the traditional worship, by forcefully banishing the heretics and the traitors from the Catholic communion.
The Great War was a time of distress. We now have entered an apocalyptic time. Of course, we have not yet seen the hurricane of fire which wipes out the bodies, but we are already witnessing the agony of souls, because the spiritual authority seems uninterested in defending them, uninterested in defending the doctrinal truth anymore than the integrity of the worship, from the very fact that it publicly has renounced to condemn the guilty. It is the agony of souls in the Holy Church undermined from within by the lingering traitors and heretics.
In history there have been other apocalyptic times. Let us remember, for example, the interrogations of Joan of Arc deprived of the sacraments by churchmen and kept in jail by awful soldiers. But these apocalyptic times are always marked by refulgent victories of grace. Indeed, even when the beasts of the Apocalypse penetrate within the holy city and expose it to the worst of perils, the Church ceases not to remain the Church: the beloved city inexpugnable to the devil and his followers, the pure and immaculate city whose Queen is Our Lady.
By standing at the foot of the cross of her Son, the Blessed Lady, broken and assailed as no other creature will ever be, makes us understand without the least doubt that she will be able to sustain the elect in unheard of trials, through her maternal and powerful intercession. This Queen of Martyrs gives us the certitude that victory is hidden in the cross itself and that it will be made manifest. The radiant dawn of the resurrection will soon rise on the endless day of the triumphant Church.
In the Church of Christ which is prey to modernism in all degrees of the hierarchy, the suffering of souls, the intensity of the scandal is without compare. This drama is utterly novel, but the Redeemer’s grace is more profound than this drama. And the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which grants us all graces, knows no interruption. In the beaten souls, ready to succumb, the Holy Virgin intervenes day and night to untie this drama, to break mysteriously the hellish chains which appeared unbreakable. Solve vincla reis.
All of us whom, by a singular honor, Christ calls to be faithful in these new fangled perils, in this never experienced type of struggle—the struggle against the precursors of the Antichrist introduced in the bosom of the Church—let us return to our heart, let us return to our faith. Let us recall that we believe in Christ’s divinity, in the divine and spiritual maternity of Mary Immaculate.
Let us at least have a glimpse of the fullness of grace and wisdom hidden in the Heart of the Son of God made man, which flows upon all believers. Let us discern also the fullness of tenderness and intercession which is the privilege of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
With this filial recourse to Our Lady, we shall then experiment that the times of the Antichrist are the time of victory: victory of the full Redemption of Christ and of the sovereign intercession of Mary.
