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(LifeSiteNews) — Even though we know with certainty that God wins in the end, and that He will give us everything we need to serve Him faithfully in this time in which He created us to live, it is easy to lose heart in our increasingly chaotic world. This chaos manifests itself in the anxiety surrounding the U.S. presidential elections, in wars around the world, and through the ongoing Synod on Synodality, which is arguably one of the most insidious attacks against the Catholic Church in history. Even so, we have every reason for Christian joy and confidence, if only we can resist the wiles of Satan and lay hold to the gifts that God offers us in great abundance. 

One fount of holy wisdom to guide us in these difficult times is the work of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877-1964), who not only combatted the same foundational errors that plague the Church today but also left us the Catholic truths we need to cooperate with God’s grace to overcome those errors. As one of the last great pre-Vatican II theologians, today’s Modernists would view him as having “lost the battle.” As we can see from his words below, though, the enemies of God and His Church are mistaken: through the trials afflicting the Mystical Body of Christ, God has permitted the truths that Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange taught to be more clear and certain than ever. 

The nature of our crisis 

In his 1946 article entitled “Where is the New Theology Headed?”, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange argued that the theology embraced by those who would eventually play a dominant role at Vatican II was essentially the Modernism already condemned by St. Pius X:

One thus returns to the Modernist position: ‘Truth is no more immutable than man himself, since it evolved with him, in him, and through him.’ As Pius X said rightly of the Modernists, ‘they pervert the eternal concept of truth.’

Although St. Pius X’s lengthy encyclical condemning Modernism, Pascendi Dominici Gregis from 1907, includes theological concepts beyond the understanding of most Catholics, his Oath Against Modernism from 1910 included affirmations simple enough for all of us to grasp today, including the following which effectively refutes all of the errors we see from Francis and his Synodal companions: 

I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given to the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely. 

We hear so many questions from Rome today: can women become priests or deacons?; do all religions lead to God?; can the Church approve LGBTQ morality? To all such questions we can respond: no, see St. Pius X’s Oath Against Modernism! 

Much of the Vatican II revolution would have stalled in its tracks if the Catholic hierarchy had rejected the “the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously.” However, far too many members of the hierarchy lost sight of St. Pius X’s warning, leading both to great offense against God and disastrous consequences for the Church. As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange explained, though, God permits the evils that have proliferated as a result of this betrayal of immutable Catholic truth to effectuate a greater good: to bring us back to true doctrine: 

Moreover, since Providence only permits evils for a greater good, and since we see all about us an excellent reaction against the errors we have emphasized herein, we can hope that these deviations shall be the occasion of a true doctrinal renewal, achieved through a more profound study of the works of St. Thomas, whose value is more and more apparent when compared to today’s intellectual disarray.

God is our Loving Father and wants us to reject the errors about which St. Pius X and Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange warned. Our collective delay in rejecting those errors worsens the evil consequences resulting from those errors, such that over time we have increasingly greater reason to return to immutable truth. Thanks be to God, many more Catholics have now seen enough to finally and decisively reject the errors fueling Francis’s godless revolution. 

How to counter deeply entrenched evil

At this point, though, we cannot overcome the evils plaguing the Church merely through a rejection of errors. In his Love of God and the Cross of Jesus, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange wrote of the spiritual battle that we must wage in the face of deeply entrenched evil, such as what we see today:

Whenever some major and deeply entrenched evil, such as Freemasonry and its effects, must be fought, whenever evil manifests itself as truly satanic, then to appease God’s justice spiritual action no less profound must come forward under immediate direction of her whom God set up as the terror of demons, Mary . . . Every apostle, even every fervent soul within the Church militant, should take some part in the contemplative life and its struggle, making renewed offering of self daily at Holy Mass with increasing devotion to the consecration, the act of the Savior’s eternal priesthood, and continuing the same offering throughout the course of the day in difficulties and trials and in the more and more perfect accomplishment of the duties of our state of life. When we accept supernaturally the daily trials sent to us by Providence, we should also ask God not for crosses but for the love of the crosses which He Himself has laid upon us . . . that we may be purified and become instruments of salvation for our neighbor. (quoted in Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s The Spiritual Life)

Every word of this applies to us today. We see that our Loving Father is permitting these calamities so it is natural to ask what we can do to appease His justice. As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange wrote, and surely all the saints would agree, we must continually renew our efforts to serve God as well as possible, under the direction of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this way, we will not only cooperate in God’s victory over the evils plaguing the Church and world but also merit greater rewards in Heaven. 

God’s will and providence

Even though we know how we must fight, we may not see the victory, at least not until after a long delay. In his Providence, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange wrote of our continual need to do God’s will to the utmost of our ability — regardless of whether we see progress — and then abandon ourselves entirely to His Providence for everything else: 

Love in its purest form, in fact, depends for its support upon the will of God, after the example of our Lord who said: ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work’ (John 4: 34) ; ‘Because I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me’ (John 5: 30). Thus no more perfect or nobler or purer way of loving God can be found than to make the divine will our own, fulfilling God’s will as expressed to us and then abandoning ourselves entirely to His good pleasure. For souls that follow this road, God is everything: eventually, they can say in very truth: ‘My God and my all.’ God is their center; they find no peace but in Him, by submitting all their aspirations to His good pleasure and accepting tranquilly all that He does. At times of greatest difficulty St. Catherine of Siena would remember the Master’s words to her: ‘Think of Me and I will think of thee.’

If we always found success in our efforts we would have far less reason to abandon ourselves to God’s Providence. But we honor God far more, and gain corresponding merit, when we must exercise the virtues of humility, patience, and fortitude as we engage in spiritual warfare. 

The duty of the present moment

In his Providence, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange also wrote of the duty of the present moment which, in a sense, simplifies our efforts to fight the spiritual warfare: 

The duty at any given moment conveys, frequently under a modest exterior, the expression of God’s will regarding ourselves and our individual lives. Thus it was our Lady lived her life of union with God, by accomplishing His will in the daily routine of duties of her simple life, a life outwardly commonplace like that of any other person in her lowly rank. Thus, too, did the saints live, doing the will of God as it was revealed to them from one moment to the other, without allowing themselves to be upset by unforeseen reverses. Their secret consisted in submitting constantly to the divine action in the shaping of their lives. In that action they recognized all they had to do and suffer, duties to be accomplished, crosses to be borne. They were persuaded that what is happening at the moment is a sign that either God wills or permits it for the good of those seeking Him. Even the evil they experienced taught them something: by taxing their patience it showed them by contrast what must be done to avoid sin and its disastrous consequences. Thus the saints see in the sequence of events a sort of providential schooling. Moreover, they are convinced that behind the succession of external happenings runs a parallel series of actual graces which are continually being offered to enable us to draw great spiritual profit from these events, whether painful or pleasing. The sequence of events, if looked at in the right perspective, is an instructive course on the things of God, a sort of extension of revelation or application of the Gospel truths continuing down to the end of time.

The secret of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints “consisted in submitting constantly to the divine action in the shaping of their lives.” This pleases God and increases our personal merit, but also leads souls to work far more effectively in combatting the evils threatening us because, as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange wrote, this practice better allows us to discern the truths which God wants us to understand. 

Concretely, we can see in the increasing chaos a manifestation of God’s will and Providence. He has made it clear that we are in a spiritual battle, so we must fight as saints; He has shown us that the errors against which St. Pius X and Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange fought still exist, so we must combat them with increased vigor; He has shown us that we can no longer find peace or security in the things of this world, so we must follow the Blessed Virgin Mary and turn to Him. God has, in other words, made it more clear than ever before in our lifetimes what Catholics must do to serve Him — for this we should be grateful. If we can lay hold to the gifts that God offers us, we have every reason for Christian joy and confidence, knowing that our daily struggles contribute to God’s eventual victory over those who today think they have won. Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us!

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