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Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity

December 31, 2023 by Lena {JOYfilledfamily} Filed Under: Archbishop Lefebvre, Christmas Leave a Comment


The Sign of Contradiction


“Behold, this child is destined for the fall and for the rise of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be contradicted” (Luke, 2:34)


The words of Simeon narrated in today’s Gospel are indeed mysterious. Jesus Christ came into the world to bring salvation to all men. He appeared on earth as a tiny infant, in order thereby to win more readily the love of his fellow men. The angels of heaven had proclaimed on the night of His birth that He had come to bring peace to mankind. Yet, when Mary and Joseph brought the Child Jesus to the temple for the ceremony of the presentation, the venerable Simeon, to whom God had revealed that this was truly the long-awaited Saviour, announced that this Child was set for the fall, as well as for the spiritual uplift of many.


We can understand how Christ was destined to bring this spiritual elevation to many, for He was to merit by His sufferings and death the grace of salvation for every member of the human race. But it seems strange to say that Christ is set for the fall of many human beings.


The explanation is that Our Saviour was destined to be the cause of spiritual resurrection for those who would accept His teachings and put them into practice in their lives; but He was to be the occasion of the spiritual fall of those who would reject His message. No one is forced to accept the graces which come so abundantly from the hands of our Divine Redeemer. To all men He gives sufficient grace for salvation; but many reject His lights and inspirations. For them He becomes a sign that is contradicted, and their punishment is greater in proportion to the measure of His graces they have rejected.


In the world around us at the present day, especially in the field of international politics, we see many who have rejected Christ and His teachings; and we see verified the prophecy that in this rejection of the Light of the world these persons are meeting their downfall. We can truly say that the greatest obstacles to peace in the world today are being placed by men who have no room for Jesus Christ in their souls. The most tragic feature is that many of these persons received Christian instruction in their youth.


Practical Application


On this Sunday, the last Sunday of the year, ask yourself honestly if you have tried to follow during the past twelve months the teachings of Our Saviour in all your conduct. If you have striven to do this, then you can rejoice that the past year has contributed to your spiritual resurrection. If you have not lived up to Christ’s teachings, then avoid the fate of those for whom this Child is an occasion of spiritual ruin, by making a firm resolution to be numbered among his faithful followers during the coming year.

– Sermon of Archbishop Lefebvre

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

October 22, 2023 by Lena {JOYfilledfamily} Filed Under: Archbishop Lefebvre, Time after Pentecost Leave a Comment

Forgiveness of Injuries


“So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if you do not each forgive your brothers from your hearts” (Matt., 18:35)

Four of our five boys serving at the altar

The meaning of the parable in today’s Gospel is easy to understand. In fact, Our Lord Himself explained it, pointing out that, just as the master refused to condone the debt of his servant because he would not forgive a debt to his fellow-servant, so God will refuse His pardon to human beings who will not forgive the offences they receive from their fellow men.

That we must forgive those who offend us is one of the most definite teachings of Jesus Christ. He commanded: “Love your enemies, do good to those who persecute and calumniate you” (Matt., 5:44). In His own prayer He bids us to say: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Theologians teach that even to those who wrong us we are obliged to show ordinary or common signs of friendship. Thus, we must greet them when we meet, and speak kindly to them. On the other hand, we are not obliged to show them extraordinary or special signs of friendship, such as conferring gifts on them or writing them affectionate letters.

It is not easy to forgive those who have treated us harshly, but with the aid of God’s grace we can do so. It is quite natural that the remembrance of what we have suffered should cause a feeling of resentment, but this is not necessarily an indication that we have not forgiven these persons. The best proof that we have forgiven them “from our hearts” (to use Our Lord’s expression) is the [act that we pray for them.

It is a well known fact that a person who allows hatred for another to abide in his soul not only offends God but also renders himself unhappy. He is soured and miserable. On the other hand, one who does not allow himself to be disturbed by the unkindness and injustice he receives from others is usually a very happy and contented person.

The most deplorable form of enmity occurs when the parties are intimate relatives, particularly if they dwell in the same house. It is indeed a sad violation of Christian charity when brothers and sisters keep up a feud for years, under the same roof. Often such a situation begins with a trifling incident, but with the passing of the years this is magnified into extravagant proportions. Such persons should remember the parable of the unforgiving servant.

Practical Application

If you receive unkindness or injustice from others, ask for the grace to forgive them in the spirit manifested by Our Lord when He prayed on the Cross: “Father, forgive them.”

St. Andrew Daily Missal, 1945

Protected: The Essential Link between a Holy Life and a Life of Prayer

July 5, 2023 by Lena {JOYfilledfamily} Filed Under: Archbishop Lefebvre, Prayer, The Catacombs Leave a Comment

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Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

November 13, 2022 by Lena {JOYfilledfamily} Filed Under: 11 November, Archbishop Lefebvre, Time After Pentecost, Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost Leave a Comment

The women of our parish were blessed to have a day retreat offered to us this past Saturday. I would have attended for the Holy Hour, alone.

Here is a sermon from Archbishop Lefebvre on Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost.

Today’s Gospel describes two striking miracles wrought by Our Divine Lord-the cure of a woman who for ten years had suffered from an issue of blood and the raising to life of a ruler’s daughter. In both miracles the divine power of Jesus Christ was clearly manifested. But even more evident was His tender mercy. Both cases were such as to arouse the deep sympathy of Our Divine Saviour because of the pathetic condition of those who sought His help the poor woman who had so long suffered from a distressing ailment without any natural hope of relief and the grief-stricken father who had just seen his little daughter snatched from him by death.

The mercy of Our Divine Saviour is just as great today as it was when He lived on earth, and He is just as willing to aid the suffering and the sorrowing today as He was nineteen centuries ago. But if we wish to profit by His mercy we must approach Him in the same spirit as the poor woman and the afflicted father-with a deep confidence that He can help us and thai He will do so if we pray to Him with humility and perseverance.

Neither can we say that we do not possess the same advantage that was granted to the people of Palestine of old, to have Christ personally in their midst. He is with us just as truly as He was with the poor and the suffering who gazed on His gentle face when He walked on earth. For our holy faith assures us that Our Lord is truly present on our altars in the Blessed Sacrament. There He dwells, night and day, to help us in our needs, to give us light and consolation in afflictions, to strengthen us in temptation, and even to relieve our temporal burdens when this will be for our spiritual benefit.

Practical Catholics come to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament with the same spirit of faith that was manifested by the sick woman when she said, “If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed.” We can do more than touch the garment of Christ. We can kneel before Him with the assurance of faith that we are conversing intimately with Him as with a beloved friend who is anxious to do us good. He may not grant us the particular favour we ask, especially if it is something temporal or material, because it may not be for our spiritual welfare. But He will always hear our prayers and grant us some favour that will be conducive to our spiritual welfare and to our eternal salvation.

Practical Application
Almost all those in the church today can if they wish, make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament daily, or at least several times in the course of each week. If you have a practical faith in the doctrine of Our Lord’s real presence in the Church, you will take advantage of this opportunity to visit Him frequently and to unburden to Him the needs of your soul.

Purgatory & Our Duty

November 7, 2022 by Lena {JOYfilledfamily} Filed Under: 11 November Saints, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Archbishop Lefebvre Leave a Comment

Below are excerpts taken from a sermon that Archbishop Lefebreve gave on the Feast of All Saints November 1,1978.

Does Purgatory exist?

If one were to believe all that is written today, even by members of the Catholic Church, one would be tempted to believe that Purgatory is a medieval fable! No!

Purgatory is a dogma-a dogma of our Faith.

Whoever refuses to believe in Purgatory is a heretic.

In fact, already in the thirteenth century, the Second Council of Lyons solemnly affirmed the existence of Purgatory. Then, in the sixteenth century the Council of Trent, in particular, solemnly af­firmed against the negations of the Protestants, the necessity in preserving the Faith, of believing in the ex­istence of Purgatory.

It is therefore certain that this is a dogma of our Faith which is especially affirmed and sup­ported by Tradition-more than by Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture does, however, offer passages which make allusion, as clearly as possible, to the existence of Purgatory.

We have, moreover, in an epistle which is used by the Church in Masses offered for the intention of the souls in Purgatory, the account of the “Machabees” where Judas Machabee sent a sum of twelve thousand talents to Jerusalem asking the priests to offer a sacrifice for the intention of the soldiers who had died in combat in order that they might be delivered from their afflictions and enter heaven.

Sacred Scripture adds: “It is a salutary thought to pray for our dead.” Saint Paul also makes allusion to the souls in Purgatory when he says that certain souls enter heaven immediately and others quasi per ignem; that is, who enter heaven as well but by fire, making allusion certainly to the purification necessary for these souls who would not be perfectly prepared to enter heaven.

It is by these allusions and particularly by Tradition which is transmitted to us by the Apostles and by the Fathers of the Church, that the Church has founded her Faith in the existence and in the reality of Purgatory.



Why does Purgatory exist?

It exists because we must obviously enter heaven in the most perfect purity.

It is inconceivable that souls may enter the vision of God-enter into union with God, a union which surpasses all that our mind is able to imagine, all that we are able to conceive, enter into Divinity Itself, to participate in the light of God-with any dispositions which would be con­trary to this light, contrary to the glory of God, to the purity of God, to the sanctity of God-it is inconceivable!

This is why those who have died in the state of grace but are not perfectly purified from the penalty which is due to sin after the sin has been pardoned, and also those who die with venial sins, must pass through this place of purification which renders them worthy to be present before God in the Blessed Trinity.

It is then something which is entirely normal, for we must not forget that even if the sin is pardoned, there remains in us a disor­der which was established by the sin.

Without a doubt, the moral fault no longer exists because it has been par­doned by the Sacrament of Penance; however, it remains that our soul has been wounded, our soul has suffered a disorder which must be repaired. This may be compared in a certain way to the penitent who has sinned by steal­ing from his neighbor. Not only must he accuse himself to Our Lord in the Sacrament of Penance and receive absolution, but he must also reimburse the sum which was stolen. One may compare this, I would say, to all the sins which we have committed.

We have created a disor­der, we have created an injustice, and we must repair this injustice even after the sin has been pardoned. This is why the souls in Purgatory remain there until the mo­ment when they are perfectly purified from the penalties due to their sins which have been forgiven.



What is the state of the souls in Purgatory?

Are the souls in Purgatory able to acquire merit for themselves by which they might abridge their time of purification?

No, henceforth the souls in Purgatory are not able to gain merit for themselves.

Why? Since they are no longer here upon earth, they are no longer like us-in the state in which one is able to gain merit.

We have the choice to make, and by the fact that we choose good in place of evil we merit a recompense.

The souls in Pur­gatory no longer have this choice to make. They are definitively fixed in their grace, in sanctifying grace. They have the certitude of being among the elect, and this causes a profound joy, an unalterable joy. They know that henceforth they are destined for heaven. But they suffer as well from an indescribable suffering be­cause they know much better than we what God is and what He has promised us by grace-the glory that is wait­ing for us in heaven. They suffer severely from the thought that they are not yet able to approach God and to live with Him for eternity.

They are also tormented by remorse at the thought of the goodness of God and of the charity of God of which they are witnesses. They un­derstand well the charity which God has had for them: for they had sinned and separated themselves from God and it is for this that they suffer. They know that they suffer justly for the sins which they had committed and to be purified in order to arrive in the glory of the Lord. Thus, as a consequence, the souls in Purgatory are not able to abridge their sufferings.



How then would they be able to render their admit­tance into heaven more rapid?

They count upon us. Yes, they count upon us. It is we who, by the unity of the Mys­tical Body, are able to merit for them. The union that we in the Church Militant have with the souls in Purgatory and the fact that we are able to merit for these souls are founded upon the unity of the Mystical Body. The Church Suffering and the Church Militant are united in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since we are able to merit for them we may ask Our Lord Jesus Christ in our prayers and, in particular, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that the souls in Purgatory be more rapidly delivered from their sufferings; and, in­deed, we must do so.

It is a duty for us because these souls who are suffering count upon us for their deliverance.

We are able to do so therefore by our prayers and, in particular, in offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We are able to do so by our penances, penances which we must do as well in order to atone for the penalty which is due to us for sins which have been pardoned and in order to dimmish our Purgatory and, if it pleases God, and if God so wishes, that we not pass through Purgatory but rather go directly to heaven to join Him.

We must therefore perform sacrifices for the souls in Purgatory and also profit from the treasure which the Church places at our disposal, the treasure of the merits of the saints, of all those who have lived here on earth.

The Church has a treasury of merits which she is able to place at the disposal of souls who truly wish to employ these merits for the souls in Purgatory.

The Church asks us to perform certain prayers, to acquire these merits and to apply them to the souls in Purgatory. This is what we can do for them! It is a considerable en­couragement for us, an encouragement to sanctify our­selves.

If we truly understood what the souls in Pur­gatory suffer, we would do all that we possibly could for our part to deliver them and to avoid Purgatory oursel­ves.

Concerning the indulgences which the Church gives: It is good to know that these repose upon a perfectly known truth of the Church in which we must believe, the reality of the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Council of Trent itself requests that we avoid enter­ing into the subtlety of the number of indulgences, of any calculation which would be made and of any estima­tion more or less exact.

One may wonder for example, if by one Mass said at a privileged altar, one Mass conse­quently which is said at an altar where one receives a plenary indulgence that one may apply to the souls in Purgatory.

Is it absolutely certain the soul for whom the indulgence has been applied will be immediately delivered from its penalties and go to heaven? As a rule-yes. Theoretically-yes. Why? It is because the plen­ary indulgence is given specifically by the Church for the complete remission of the penalties which are due to a sin after it has been pardoned. However, as the Council of Trent well explained, it depends upon God to give this indulgence. This indulgence then depends upon God. God sees the disposition of souls and consequently it is He who is ultimately the Judge of all things and of that which these souls must suffer in Purgatory and of the penalties which they must expiate. As a conse­quence, one is not able to arrive in an absolutely mathe­matical manner at the conclusion that from the moment one has performed a certain act or a certain prayer the soul is necessarily and absolutely delivered from Pur­gatory. This depends upon Divine Justice. We should hope and we should think that God judging all the merits which have been acquired by the Church applies them to these indulgences and we may truly hope that these souls are delivered.

This is why we must meditate upon the reality of Pur­gatory, to be united to the souls of our brethren, of our parents, of our deceased friends and of the entire in­numerable multitude of souls who have no one among their acquaintances who prays for them.

We must then pray often for the souls in Purgatory. The magnificent liturgy of the dead thus inspires us. Unfortunately, one must say that today the manner in which the reform (of Vatican II) has touched these prayers and modified them has been a great sorrow for the Church.

In addition, I think it is good to make allusion equal­ly to the reform of the Council (Vatican II) concerning the cremation of bodies.

I think that one may make al­lusion to this at the moment when one is speaking of our dear deceased. It is written in Canon Law that those who, in one manner or another, express the desire to have their bodies cremated after their death are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial. It is the law that they are to be thus deprived.

Without a doubt the Church, at the Council, has changed this law but these things are abominable!

Since from the beginning of its existence the Church has willed that bodies, which are temples of the Holy Ghost, which have been sanctified by Baptism, sanctified by the Sacraments, sanctified by the presence of the Holy Ghost, sanctified by the reception of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, that these bodies be venerated. It is noted in Canon Law that even the mem­bers of a Christian-of a Catholic-which are amputated in a hospital be interred and they must not be burned. See what great veneration the Church has for members which have been sanctified by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

We then, absolutely, refuse this abominable custom which is, moreover, a masonic cus­tom. Canon Law makes allusion to the associations in which it is requested that bodies be cremated and these associations are precisely masonic associations.

One truly wonders how one has been able to accept such things without having been influenced by these masonic associations. We must maintain a very great respect for the bodies of the deceased, for those who have been sanctified and we must bury them as Christians have al­ways done.

We must honor our dead and honor our cemeteries. The tombs and graves should be maintained perfectly in order to show the faith which we have that the bodies will one day be resurrected.

There you have, my dear brethren, our thoughts on the occasion of All Souls Day which we will celebrate tomorrow.

Let us live in union with the souls in Pur­gatory and let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary who as­sisted at the burial of her Son to ask Him to give us the love and respect which she had for the Body of her Divine Son.

Let us ask Him to give us also the respect for the bodies of those faithful who have died, our deceased friends and relatives.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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Hi! I'm Lena, mama of JOYfilledfamily.
We are a traditional Catholic family striving to live for Jesus Christ in everything we do. We pray to completely surrender our will to His and to become His servants. Our mission of this blog is to share our JOY.

This blog serves as a journal of us making good memories, living the liturgical year, and our spiritual journey.

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