Tuesday 3 February 2009

Miracle of Man Who Survived Without TLM for Over 40 Years



Last night SMMTV caught up with a 60 year old man who claimed to have gone without TLM for over 40 years. The man, who wished to remain anonymous, when asked how his soul had survived all this time, he responded, "It's been a struggle. I had to nibble on little bits of personal devotions and frequent the Sacraments whenever I could. Without the Sacraments I very well could have died!"

He described with pain how he woke up one Sunday morning only for his whole life to have been changed. "I remember that Sunday well", he said, "I got up and went to Church, doing my usual fast of 3 hours in preparation to receive Our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist, and suddenly when I got there, we had to make loads of responses during the Mass, the choir had gone and we all had to sing and suddenly everything was in the vernacular...even the Priest was facing the wrong way. As you can imagine I was devastated. 'Where has TLM gone'? I thought to myself!"

After 40 years of being starved and deprived of TLM, as you can imagine, he is now enjoying once more the profound depths and riches of Catholic spirituality in praying the Mass and being allowed to pray quietly in the interior of his heart, rather than make lots of responses and have to do and say things that really the Priest has been employed to do.

"Well, if it had not been for Pope Benedict XVI and and a local Parish Priest who is loyal to the Holy Father's papal supremacy by virtue of the apostolic succession given him by the Authority of Christ, I might still be wandering the streets, looking desperately for TLM, only to pop into the odd Church and get a kind of diluted Catholic spirituality, lacking the nutrition and vitality of what I was used to all those many years ago."

Speaking of his pain he mentioned that he had been tempted to attend the Mass of the SSPX after the schismatic bishops had ordained even more schismatic bishops against the advice of the then Holy Father in 1970. "The SSPX were offering TLM, that's right, I could have gone there, but I knew that even though they appeared to be more faithful to Sacred Tradition, I also knew their minds and hearts were not in full communion with the Holy Father, but I knew that if I was patient and kept praying and remained a loyal son of the Church, that TLM would come back to the One True Church. Now, every week I can find TLM again after so many years, thank God! I'm glad that those Bishops are being gently brought back again like the poor lost sheep they are, because if they can accept humbly the doctrine of Papal Supremacy, while renouncing mad and obscene revisions of history, they too will one day be able to bring their sense of reverence for the Mass as a gift to the Church."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done - I like that!

Anonymous said...

A lovely story! We don't have TLM in our parish sadly, but I will ask our parish priest if it could be considered. My dad remembers TLM from years ago, and said it's a totally different experience. I have yet to attend one myself, but next time I'm in London, I will drop into Westminster Cathedral to a Latin Mass. You're truly blessed that you have it in Brighton! Tanya

Anonymous said...

Very funny article. You are such a brilliant writer.

Interestingly, not everyone that came to Candlemas on Monday night seemed to be a big fan of the Latin Mass, particularly the older parishioners who were familiar with the Latin mass before Vat II. They came to support Father and the parish. We should not fall into a trap of believing that just because it is new to us it is amazing. If mass is devotional it shouldn't matter what form it is in.

Every thing in moderation I think.

The Bones said...

Agreed regarding devotion and Mass. Thanks for encouraging comments!

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