Transmit a spirit? Which one of them, there are mainly two?

.by Hans-Georg Lundahl on Sunday, 07 November 2010 at 21:41.

Mgr Fellay, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of FSSPX (founded on diocesan level in perfect communion with a conservative bishop faithful to Pope Paul VI) and thirtieth of Institut Universaitaire St Pie X celebrated todays pontifical Mass.

One thing he said me struck me: Mgr Lefèbvre, in the Cathedral of Dakar, was dreaming about apostasy and realised there was only ONE solution: transmitting the Sacraments and the Doctrine was not enough, one had to transmit a spirit as well.

OK.

A Christian spirit.

OK.

Because there were just so m ...

No, I must have got this one wrong. I seemed to remember something vaguely synonymous to: just so many who received the sacraments and believed the doctrine but carried so little fruit because they did so in the wrong spirit.

Or, wait again. Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is where we make our sacrifice. We must unite ourselves to Christ. If we do not do so while assisting mass - and this he said - we make God a liar.

Is that so? Is lack of devotion, of whole heartedness, of unreserved offering of self not just irreverent in Holy Mass, but actually a worse offense than not assisting mass at all? If so, why did Church exact of us assistance at Holy Mass each Sunday and each Holiday of obligation?

As far as I can see, his preaching today is very akin to the liturgy in Novus Ordo I try to avoid by going there.

When certain N[ovus]O[rdo] priests say we should confess [in abridged confiteor or remade kyrie] that we have not always lived up to the graces we have been given, I feel bypassed, what about those of us who have actully sinned, like punch someone in the face, who when rejecting red coins was maybe offering to save me the thirty cents I had no yellow coins for? Or who, even if it was not anything we could help - at least it felt so to me - acvtually wanted to punch a priest in the face, because he was praying for a conversion that is impossible, since conversion from sins I had not committed. Not meaning I had committed no sins at all, but meaning I had committed quite other ones.

Such a liturgy says what today's sermon says, or feels like saying, to a man like me: even if you believe all the dogmas, you do not belong here, since you are not as devout as we.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Beaubourg/Paris
7/XI/2010

Added comment: Re title: Holy Spirit is transmitted by sacraments, and that is a dogma. Not first and foremost by natural efforts to "transmit a spirit".

But I think Dom Gérard did just fine transmitting a spirit in that sense too - only in his case the ones receiving were close disciples, like monks et c.

Sunday at 21:43