Are We Saints?
by Father Marcel LAROUCHE
LIVING SAINTS
St. Philippe-Marie canonized on June 1, 2008 |
St. Raoul-Marie canonized on June 3, 2007 |
The theme of holiness is a requirement of the Gospel. Jesus exhorted His listeners to practise holiness: “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48) The Lord was not afraid to stimulate us to the absolute: “as our heavenly Father is perfect.” However, holiness does not necessarily mean that we have to have achieved perfection. (We must read in this regard, the wonderful study by Marc Bosquart, L’Arc-en-ciel de la sainteté, which has just been published.) The requirement of perfection Jesus proposes admits of no limitations. The limitations come from human beings. According to Him, our attitude and our action must follow the example of God Himself. Jesus is not afraid of words. He spoke and acted without prejudices or stereotypes.
In the first centuries of Christianity, it was popular fervor and piety that declared men and women holy before the advent of the rigid rules of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, rules that would come into being as of the 10th century. As for the Christian Churches that were born from the Protestant Reformation of 1517, they do not have canonizations.
In our time, the Lord has shattered the narrow confines of the rules surrounding the veneration of saints by asking Marie-Paule to proceed with the canonization of Raoul Auclair and Father Philippe Roy. Marie-Paule herself was warned of a future phenomenon, totally new, concerning the practice of canonization: “One day, saints will be canonized while they are still living...” (Life of Love, vol. I, 1958, p. 238), “... and you will be the first.” (id., vol. III, 1969, p. 158)
THE “HYPOSTATIC UNION”
On March 22, 2005, Mother Paul-Marie experienced a grace related to the hypostatic union:
“HYPOSTATIC UNION” (March 22, 2005)
At the moment of the Elevation, I found myself contemplating the picture of my Jesus... and an intense surge of love swept upward to Jesus on the cross. At the same time and without any willing of it on my part, waves of love left my heart for the Heart of Jesus, waves of light, peace and love which came back to me and penetrated my heart, then went back to Him, not in a straight line, but in forming luminous circles of some size.... Then the same waves of light, peace and love left my heart for the Heart of Mary and then returned to mine.... This was repeating itself when, suddenly, the three movements of light fused and penetrated the Father’s Heart that was a blaze of burning love.... How could such a grace be described? Immediately I “heard”, coming from directly above my head, “HYPOSTATIC UNION”. (White Book I, Eucharistic Graces, p. 25)
On Thursday, April 7, 2005, Marie-Paule wrote:
I “heard”, regarding that grace of Holy Tuesday, March 22: “SEE, MY DAUGHTER, THAT IS WHAT IT IS TO BE CANONIZED WHILE STILL LIVING.” Right afterwards I again “heard”: “SUCH IS THE SEAL AFFIXED TO YOUR LIFE.” What surprises!
It was the reminder of an indication “received” in 1956, the time of a very painful phase of my life, that of my conjugal separation, after the sudden death of my father on August 28, 1956, at which time I had “heard”: “One day saints will be canonized while they are still living...” Not only prudence, but also my doubts about the realization of that “indication” had driven me to omit, in the first volume of “Life of Love” (chap. 39, p. 238), the affirmation that completed the sentence. A long time afterwards, in January 1969, to remain obedient I had to write down the complete sentence: “One day saints will be canonized while they are still living... and you will be the first.” (Id., pp. 42-43)
Concerning the hypostatic union, a precedent exists with Madre Conchita of Mexico (1862-1937, and declared Venerable in 1999). The Lord had her experience a Eucharistic grace which He identified in similar theological language:
Madre Conchita |
My daughter, I want you to repeat as often as possible and especially when you suffer, these words of love that were my words: “This is my Body, this is my Blood,” as you offer yourself up to the eternal Father in union with me.... I separate my Blood from my Body to offer it to the Father for you; you yourself must do the same thing for me, so that our wills may be intimately united. There you have a sort of hypostatic union. (Juan Gutierrez Gonzalez, Conchita Cabrera de Armida au coeur du Mystère eucharistique, Pierre Téqui éditeur, 2004, p. 277)
Madre Conchita’s mystical experience prepared the unique way for Mother Paul-Marie’s mystical experience which goes beyond what has existed since the Incarnation of the Son of God.
Mother Paul-Marie said:
... penetrated the Father’s Heart... How could such a grace be described? Immediately I “heard”...: “HYPOSTATIC UNION.”
Madre Conchita was told by Jesus:
... to offer it up to the Father for you; you yourself must do the same thing for me, so that our wills may be intimately united. There you have a sort of hypostatic union.
The “hypostatic union” is clearly defined by Jesus to Madre Conchita: “so that our wills may be intimately united.” The latest revelations to Mother Paul-Marie, always during the Eucharist, speak of an intimate unity of love with the Father’s Heart in which their wills are united. (Cf. White Book I, pp. 34-40) In both cases, it is a matter of being united. However, the phenomenon of “hypostatic union” concerning Madre Conchita is limited by Jesus who specified that the intimate union of His will with her was “a sort of hypostatic union”, whereas Mother Paul-Marie’s love fuses with that of Jesus and Mary to penetrate the Father’s Heart. With Madre Conchita, the “hypostatic union” is comparable and relative, whereas with Mother Paul-Marie, the “hypostatic union” is objective and absolute.
This theological concept of “hypostatic union” sheds new light on the mystery.
Jesus warned Madre Conchita of the opposition there would be to those mystical concepts.
Many of the graces I will give you will appear to be new and be the subject of discussions, but am I not the master of the gifts I wish to bestow? The mystical incarnation will be one such grace, but I myself assure you that new light will be shed on the mystical life. (Id., Conchita Cabrera de Armida, p. 114)
Many will be scandalized by the request I made to you of repeating: “This is my Body, this is my Blood”, because they will say that these are very sacred words. (Id., p. 281)
In a similar manner, the experience of Life of Love is a scandal for a part of the Church.
THE SAINTS ACCORDING TO SAINT PAUL
St. Paul |
Saint Paul, the apostle of the signs, the super apostle chosen by a mystical means, states straightaway and without any false shame the nature of holiness inherent in the fact of having been baptized in Christ Jesus and henceforth living as a Christian. Paul the Apostle begins most of his pastoral letters by referring to the Christians of the cities to whom he writes as “saints”.
In the letter to the Romans, Paul said:
To you all, who are God’s beloved in Rome, called to be saints, may God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ send grace and peace. (Rom 1:7)
In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote:
... to the church of God in Corinth, to the holy people of Jesus Christ, who are called to take their place among all the saints everywhere who pray to our Lord Jesus Christ; for he is their Lord no less then ours. (1 Cor 1:2)
In the second letter to the Corinthians:
From Paul, appointed by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from Timothy, one of the brothers, to the church of God at Corinth and to all the saints in the whole of Achaia. (2 Cor 1:1)
The preamble to the letter to the Ephesians expresses the same idea:
From Paul, appointed by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, to the saints who are faithful to Christ Jesus. (Eph 1:1)
The form of address of the letter to the Philippians leads the reader along the same lines:
From Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, together with their presiding elders and deacons. (Phil 1:1)
The final greeting of that last letter takes up again the theme of holiness. Paul tells them:
My greetings to every one of the saints in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send their greetings. All the saintssend their greetings, especially those of the imperial household. (Phil 4:21-22)
Finally, the letter to the Colossians also recalls the theme of holiness:
From Paul, appointed by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy, to the saints in Colossae, our faithful brothers in Christ. (Col 1:1-2)
THE PROPHETISM OF PAUL TOWARDS PAUL-MARIE
The spiritual conduct of Saint Paul confirms what Heaven revealed to Marie-Paule, namely, the possibility of persons being canonized while still living. Saint Paul commonly uses the expression “saints” in addressing himself to Christians, which shows that the spiritual potential of holiness well and truly exists. For God, everything is possible.
The first Christian communities lived entirely turned towards the realities of Heaven. Their members were steeped in grace and nourished of fidelity to Christ Jesus. Their entire life was lived in love and grace. Thus, they could already be called saints. Is that not the same spiritual atmosphere which can be discerned more and more in the Christian communities of the latter times – the Community of the Lady of All Peoples –, which will no doubt justify in the future the canonization of certain persons still living?
By his original attitude or manner of speaking to the first Christians of his time, Saint Paul prophetically called to mind our time in which Paul-Marie, another Paul, was destined to take up again, under divine orders, the theme of holiness of the primitive Church in order to give it a new breath. The prophetism of Paul is directed towards Paul-Marie, the name of a mission... In this time of an ending, the time of passage, the Church is being encouraged to renew itself in depth in a spirit of a return to the sources and a prophetic openness.
The Army of Mary aroused a movement of intense conversion and interior reform which produce dazzling fruits of holiness. The phalanx of souls definitively turned towards Heaven like the first Christians suggests the presence of a multitude of saintly men and women in the making. Is that not the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
Everything is possible in accordance with the divine plans which are already manifesting themselves in this time of the Co-Redemption which is opening the Kingdom and giving Christ back to us.
Grace and peace on behalf of the Lord and the Lady.
Father Marcel Larouche