Introduction
The Archdiocese of Toronto is a busy, gossipy place of calumny and slander, as I recently found out. Much to my chagrin, a blog post by a person known to me has recently surfaced, where both my previous actions on this blog and my actions elsewhere on a public Facebook forum – the latter of which has been curiously deleted – were pulled apart, analysed and ultimately decried as being detrimental to the traditionalist movement. Memorably, I was called a ‘misguided young man’ who was ‘spiritually sick,’ and under the influence of ‘those senior friends around him.’ I was also paraded as symptomatic of the poison of Radicals Misrepresenting Traditionalism in the movement ‘seeping into those who have no viable grudge or injury to them by members of the “ institutional” Church’ in the spirit of Vatican II.
While I am not the only seemingly-despicable topic covered in the post, I am the only one named directly and spoken of at considerable length. In good conscience, I will not link to the post.
While this guest post was inspired by that particular post, I am not here to challenge or even respond to the blogger. Far from it. I am not one to lower myself down into the murky swamps of this world and become infected with the gunk in them. No, I am here to detail how I came into tradition.
When I last wrote here, I remember several commenters’ astonishment at the lucidity of my writing. Some expressed a wish to hear from me again. One even expressed – dare I say – hope that I was Vox’s son, which Vox quickly put to rest. (Likely with a chuckle.) Regardless, I am here to tell my tale. I do this with some risk, as I have told bits and pieces of my story to infrequent readers of this blog. But tell it I shall, and I will deal with the consequences.
An Exercise in Fickleness to Firmness Faith begins with one’s family, but in mine, that faith simmered beneath the surface for a very long time. You see, I grew up in a family where faith was treated haphazardly, just as their faith was arrived at. Both of my fathers were raised Catholic, but fell away because of the ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude exhibited by members of their home communities. My mother was a Low Church Anglican, and was received into the Catholic Church as an adult, but she too fell away in the faith because of the holier-than-thou attitude I mentioned previously. I came to the faith in the same haphazard way, with a clandestine baptism to boot.
After my First Holy Communion – where I memorably received His Body and Blood – I too fell away from the faith, and didn’t come back for a long time. Faith wasn’t important then, and still isn’t to a large degree in my family. While my family isn’t progressive in the most literal sense – we disavow recreational drug usage and same-sex ‘marriage’, though more on the quiet, to this day – my family is progressive in the sense a cavalier attitude is adopted towards religion, government and even abortion. So long as we aren’t being hurt, a sort of refrain is heard throughout my childhood, we don’t need to speak up on things. We like to be comfortable and unchanging in our position in the world. This was a refrain I innocently adopted as I prepped for Confirmation. Off I went to Confirmation class – back when those were popular – and off I went to Confirmation. Whatever I was expecting when the chrism touched my forehead, it wasn’t the sense of something – or someone – coming into me, forming a dent into the bone of my forehead. It was a sensation I felt long after the Holy Chrism washed off, one which I still feel from time to time. It is something I cannot for the life of me describe adequately. Without a doubt, it came from the Holy Ghost as it imparted whatever gifts I am meant to have to my soul.
From High School to higher education here, we come to a difficulty present in my reversion story.
Unlike some other traditionalists I know, I am unable to pinpoint my reversion to a particular moment in time. I did not have some moment where I suddenly became traditional. On the contrary, I walked along the path to tradition in starts and stops … like many others, I suspect. I could argue it began with Confirmation … but if it did, it was a long time before any discernible fruits came to the surface. After Confirmation, I entered high school. What a high school that was, let me tell you. While as a whole I liked high school – I met my closest friends there, for instance – looking back on it, I can see some disturbing elements there. I was involved in Development and Peace, (the Canadian equivalent of CCHD and other Third World Social Justice collections,) in for a time through the chaplaincy there. I was a member of Salesians (the high school variety), whereupon the retreats were held at a blandly modern retreat centre, though the grounds are breathtaking. My chaplain was a proponent of Native spirituality. Like my family, my high school adopted a cavalier attitude towards the most important issues in our faith – it was careful not to make any ripples lest any repercussions come back to them. To be frank, my high school intertwined faith with social justice a great deal. There was a Human Rights Club – I wasn’t involved then – but it performed what I call ‘slacktivism,’ with a religious bent, of course. Mass was infrequent throughout the year, and while Holy Week was bereft of extracurriculars, the Wednesday or Thursday of that week had a grand Stations of the Cross put on for the school. The religion curriculum was insubstantial, with Grade 11 being the year we learnt about all of those lovely religions Christianity seemingly washed away all those years ago. The chapel, while in the centre of the top floor of the school, was unspectacular, with Our Lord being shoved off to the right. And the fruit of all this? Classmates of mine went on to study gender ideology, become homosexual/trans, become involved with Protestantism, become enamoured with the myth of climate change, or otherwise become apostates. And they say education does no harm.
Graduates of the Canadian Catholic school system will know what I speak of. The worst bit is that this meshed perfectly with my progressive home and equally progressive parish. My home parish – the parish I had my Holy First Communion and Confirmation in – is perhaps the worst of the bunch in the area I live in. It was back then, and still is now, as people continue to deflect to the closest Catholic parish. I will not speak of what I think are abuses there – as I did not think them to be abuses then – but I will comment that I began to adopt some traditional practices there, albeit fitfully. I developed a sense of the sacred as divorced from the profane. I began to realize you had to have some dress sense when you went to Mass, so I made dress pants and a dress shirt my Sunday attire. I adopted the cross-at-the-forehead-lips-heart at the Gospel, whereas before I did the large cross.This did not, however, shift the progressive mindset I had at the time. I thought certain things were alright. I thought it was alright for women to be in the sanctuary, either as servers or "Eucharistic Ministers," properly called Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, the only legitimate ones being, "installed Acolytes." I thought it was cool for priests to begin homilies with jokes and stories. I thought it was a boon to the liturgy to have laypeople as myself engage in active participation. I have no regret over thinking such things, as they were how I thought then, and I didn’t know any better.
Seeds Planted
Seeds grown thus began to shift, however unknowingly, as I entered higher education. As I began to get used to the world of academia, I also began to become more involved with the faith. Ask questions. Become involved with chaplaincy again. Consort with other Catholics – I had been lacking in that department for a while – and get to know them. Things began to change. I became less and less quiet in my faith, cognisant of not only its tenets, but also some of the moral issues underlying the Church in the modern world. It was an exciting time, to say the least.
In that same year, I attended a Latin Mass at the invitation of a friend. Missa Lecta, to be precise, at Holy Family here in Toronto. I wish I could say that it was a life-changing moment, that December morning, but I would be committing a falsehood. I appreciated the silence and solitude. That was about it. I struggled to follow along, and was unsure if I would be back. My friend said I would be back. How right he was!
A couple more years went by. Not much changed on the surface, other than the fact I was beginning to become more and more perturbed by what I was seeing at Mass and in my local environs. (Other than knowing the fact Pope Francis was around and ISIS was wrecking mayhem, I was not involved in Church politics.) I was not mad, merely disturbed. I was uncomfortable with what I was seeing, the clapping, the shows at Mass. The general awareness that something was wrong, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. Throughout all of this, I was learning more about my faith. I read bits and pieces of the now Pope St. John II. I learnt his Theology of the Body. I read Humane Vitae. I attended the youthful Theology on Tap, where I also began to be disturbed by the emphasis on socializing, and not enough on faith. I was dimly involved in the charismatic movement, too, but I have since stopped, since I got what I needed from that. My involvement in all of this, frankly, is a little hard to condense and analyze. I take none of it back, but I was beginning to become more and more orthodox day by day. It was a natural progression, as I followed one logical thought to the next. No one influenced my path to tradition, other than myself and the Holy Ghost, the latter of whom used my frustration to lead me on.
It is all very mysterious, really. All of that came to a head on a Sunday in late July last year. I cannot recall what I was frustrated about, but over the course of several hours, as I conversed with a friend, I could not deny he was right and I was obstinate in my refusal to acknowledge the truth. Finally, I threw in the towel and admitted it was time to become traditional. That was the moment I admitted to myself that I did not like what I was seeing, and had to do something about it. It was a moment of intellectual honesty. Matters moved quickly after that. I bought a ’62 missal, and began to attend the most traditional Novus Ordo I could find. I devoured traditional material – the more palatable material, mind you; I hadn’t found Vox Cantoris yet – and really opened up to the faith in a way I hadn’t before. After just a month, though, I found my new parish home not all that likable, and made the move to Holy Family (www.oratory-toronto.org) on Thanksgiving weekend. I’ve been there ever since.
About a month later, I began to be acquainted with those ‘senior friends’ and have been with them since then too, becoming involved with their activities. It is where I am today.
Comments on Coming to Tradition
So. There you have it. My reversion story, though it is still being written. It is not, as that blogger and others have insinuated, a story born from anger and indoctrination from those "poisonous" to the movement. It is a story born from a search for the Truth, finding it lacking in one place, but finding it in another. I came to tradition not through the front door, by the words of saints and popes or experiencing a TLM, but through the back door, by my own noggin and asking those pesky questions so few are willing to ask.
I came to tradition by seeing what lack of it does to families, and how a lack of faith also destabilizes them. I came to tradition out of a sense of what is right and proper, that is, right and proper to Our Lord. I came to tradition not out of some desire to be cool and make friends, but to serve Him, in more ways than one. In short, I came to tradition because it was tradition. It has been a rough journey, as what I read and learn about the faith both uplifts me and leaves me downcast. That is how life is. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot have the butterflies and the rainbows without the storms that bring the rain.
When I left the Novus Ordo, it hurt. The Novus Ordo – as I am wont to say – is spiritually sickening, and does great damage, both physically to the buildings it is housed in and spiritually to the parishioners who attend it. (Those who attend, you cannot deny it is based on emotion. The Mass is not meant to be all emotional. It is for God. Not you. If you realize that already, may God bless you.)
Despite all that, it hurt to leave. I lost friends, relationships with priests, and Saturday Masses. It still hurts, mind you. It has cost me, too. Being outspoken about traditionalism has had me realize uncomfortable truths about close friends and even my own family members. I have had several moments where I suddenly became aware that those who I thought were traditional, weren’t all that traditional. (Talk about a whammy.) People have taken to attacking me online about my profession of faith, generally under my real name, but now under my assumed name, too. There is a black mark against my name in the Archdiocese. There is likely one at Holy Family, too, as I was involved with the Fr. Gilles Mongeau, S.J. business there. A Toronto priest promoting "homosexualism" and invited to be the "guest homilist" on the Feast of St. Philip Neri, the Oratorian founder. I say all of this not to cast myself as a victim – the greatest Victim is Our Lord, not someone like me – but to dispel this idea that hurt has been passed down to me from those older and wiser. No, it hasn’t. The hurt was already there as I entered the traditional world, and it continues to be there.
Vox’s hurt is not mine. It is his. I have my own hurt, and it is that hurt and sorrow that drives me to write the way I write. (To be sure, hurt and sorrow aren’t the only motivators driving my writing. There are plenty moments of joy, too. Joy at seeing Our Lord at Mass every Sunday. Joy at going to Confession when I do. Joy at seeing the beauty of certain parishes in Ontario. Joy in learning the richness of our faith, from Solemn Vespers and Gregorian chant, to the rich traditions and peculiar customs around the Mass, such as when the Alleluia is buried just before Lent. Joy at just being around certain people who know when to kick off their shoes and enjoy themselves.)
In the end, I have not been hurt as Vox has, but I have been hurt by the relativistic, modernist, ecumenical spirit rampant in the modern Church and the schools. Simply growing up in Novus Ordo land, I was denied the fullness of our faith for a long time. The Novus Ordo was all I knew until recently. When you are denied something you have every right to – but your pastors and bishops don’t talk about it – that hurts. It is a different hurt than, say, abuse at the hands of Basilian priests. It is, I am finding, a more insidious variety. One that is doing damage long after it is planted, as evidenced by the recent screed against me.
It is true what they say: the insults have increased since the release of Summorum Pontificum. Will they end? I do not know. But what I do know is that attempts to clam people up often have the opposite effect. The blogger who wrote the screed against me and others like him would do well to remember that the next time they take issue with things people write.
It is, frankly, uncharitable to ascribe things to people to which there is no proof.
As a final note, if I am some sort of living poison endangering the future of the traditionalist movement, let me say this. The traditionalist movement will not sustain on the pretty pictures of lace and the Consecration. It will sustain on what Catholics for ages past have done for their faith: defended it, decried heresies encroaching on it, and simply refuse to endorse anything that undermines said faith. I will gladly take that ‘poison’ rather than some placebo – it will get me to the Church Militant faster, at any rate.
