Transcript:
I would like to address you today on the topic of the family because, as you know, the family is under a general attack all over the world, by the world powers. We do not have to seek proof for this. It is too evident. And as you may know, the famous quotation of a letter of Sister Lucia of Fatima, which she wrote to the late Cardinal Caffarra, is that Our Lady told her that the final battle between Christ and Satan will be over marriage and family. So we are already, I think, in the middle of the battle, but we have to have the conviction that we are already in the team of the winners in this battle, because the boss of our team is Christ, and he is the winner. But we have to fight also.
So maybe first I will present you some reflections on the family, and then I will share with you some of my experience in the time of the Soviet Union and the family. One of the most important tasks of the family is to give the children a good, religious Catholic education, the education in faith. So the catechism should start in the family. This is the first catechism class. So this I experienced in my life, and also the popes and the magisterium oftentimes stress this, the importance of religious knowledge, the good religious knowledge.
So Pope Pius the Tenth rightly observed, saying that the enemy has indeed long been prowling about the fold and attacking it with such subtle cunning that now, more than ever before, the prediction of the apostle to the elders of the church of Ephesus seems to be verified. Saint Paul said, “I know that fierce wolves will get in among you and will not spare the flock.” Those who still are zealous for the glory of God are seeking the causes and the reasons for this decline in religion, coming to a different explanation. Each points out, according to his own view, a different plan for the protection and restoration of the kingdom of God on Earth. But it seems to us that, while we should not overlook other considerations, we are forced to agree with those who hold that the chief cause of the present indifference, and as it were, infirmity of soul, and the serious evils that result from it, is to be found, above all, in ignorance of things divine.
This is fully in accord with what God himself declared through the prophet Hosea, saying, “And there is no knowledge of God in the land.” And Pope Benedict the Fourteenth wrote already in the 18th century, “We declare that a great number of those who are condemned to eternal punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of culpable ignorance of the mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be numbered among the elect.” For this reason, the same Pope Benedict the Fourteenth said, “There is nothing more effective than catechetical instruction to spread the glory of God and to secure the salvation of souls.”
And so the beauty and the mission of the Catholic family is manifested and manifests itself in a special manner, also in large families. We possess one of the most striking and illuminating affirmations of the magisterium on this theme in the following words of Pope Pius the Twelfth, addressed to the associations of large families. I quote Pius the Twelfth.
Large families are the most splendid flowerbeds in the garden of the church. The brows of the fathers and mothers may be burdened with cares, but there is never a trace of that inner shadow that betrays anxiety of conscience or fear of an irreparable return to loneliness. Their youth never seems to fade away as long as the sweet fragrance of a crib remains in the home, as long as the walls of the house echo to the silvery voices of children and grandchildren. Their heavy labors, multiplied many times over, their redoubled sacrifices, and their renunciation of worldly amusements, are generously rewarded even here below by the inexhaustible treasury of affection and tender hopes that dwell in their hearts without ever tiring them or bothering them. And the hopes soon become a reality when the eldest daughter begins to help her mother to take care of the baby, and on the day the oldest son comes home with his face beaming with the first salary he has earned himself. Children in a large family learn almost automatically to be careful of what they do and to assume responsibility. For them, the family is a little proving ground before they move into the world outside.”
So, the words of Pope Pius the Twelfth. We know that the church has already spoken several times about these truths, that the family is the first seminary in the process of fostering and training priestly vocations. This is written in the decree of the Second Vatican Council, in the decree of “Optatam Totius.” And history has given proof that the majority of priestly vocations come from large families. As a rule, there are exceptions, of course.
Pope Pius the Twelfth highlighted this interrelationship, saying, “With good reason it has often been pointed out that large families have been in the forefront as the cradles of saints. We might cite, among others, the family of Saint Louis, the King of France, made up of ten children, and that of Saint Catherine of Siena, who came from a family of twenty-five, Saint Robert Bellarmine from a family of twelve, Saint Pius the Tenth from a family of ten.”
And so I remember when, a couple of years ago, I participated in the World Family Meeting in Milan, in Italy, and so, and close to me was a bishop from Argentina, and we spoke. I asked him, “So, how many siblings do you have in your family? How many children were you?” And he said, “We are twenty-one. And my mother is still alive, in good condition, ninety-two years old, in good condition. Twenty-one children from the same parents. And from these twenty-one, two archbishops, three priests, five religious sisters.” And he himself has ordained his elder brother as a bishop.
So when I was telling this story, I was in Fatima last July for the jubilee of centenary jubilee of Fatima, and I gave a talk also on family in a group. And I told this story of this bishop, his twenty-one children in the family. And a lady, after my talk, raised her hand and said very calmly and modestly, “I am a mother of eighteen.” Beautiful. And she had such a nice faith. She had eighteen children, and she was still very beautiful. So it is only a remark to this.
And so the supernatural spirit of love and self-sacrifice of the mother, and oftentimes of the mother of a large family, is the very foundation, often, of a priestly vocation and of the fruitfulness of the priestly life of her son. The following moving example illustrates this truth in an impressive manner. In the city of Zabrze in Upper Silesia in Poland is a grave which is frequently visited by pilgrims. Above the grave rises a Lourdes grotto. At the foot of the statue of the Immaculate Conception in a little glass case lies a myrtle wreath.
Here is the story of this Myrtle wreath. A priest is buried in the grave at the foot of the grotto. He was the youngest of ten children. As a young man, he worked very hard to earn enough money to study for the priesthood because his parents were poor. After his ordination, he went as a missionary to India, where he worked for many years. When he died, they buried him in his hometown of Zabrze and erected a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes above his tomb because he had always fostered a special devotion to Mary Immaculate.
Sometime after the burial of the zealous priest, a little box was found among his possessions in his house with a note pasted upon it. This was the note, “To be opened after my death.” The box contained a Myrtle wreath and a note. “This is my mother’s bridal wreath. I have carried it with me to various countries on my journeys over land and sea, in memory of that sacred moment when my mother vowed not only fidelity, but also uprightness, at the altar of God. She has kept that vow. She has had the courage to have me after the ninth child. Next to God, I owe her my life and my vocation to the priesthood. If she had not wanted me, I would not have become a priest and a missionary. I would not have been able to work for the salvation of souls. Please place this wreath, my mother’s bridal wreath, into my grave. This I ask of the one who finds it.”
When they found the wreath, the grave had already been closed, so they placed it at the foot of the statue of the Immaculate Mother. So it is a beautiful witness. Another example we could mention is the mother of Saint Pius the Tenth, Margarita Sanson. She raised ten children. She taught them to pray first thing in the morning, then to communicate with God throughout the day, and to end each day with prayer, bringing the family together for an examination of conscience every evening.
The well-known story of the wedding ring of his mother remains always inspiring. Following her son’s episcopal ordination and his placement in the Diocese of Mantova, the future Pope Pius the Tenth visited his old mother to thank her. After kissing his episcopal ring, she showed him her wedding ring and said, “Your ring is very beautiful, Giuseppe, but you would not have it if I did not wear this, my ring.” And so, my dear brothers and sisters, it is so important that we ask and pray and work in the church today for the true renewal of the church. But we have to start with the families, with good families.
Our example is also Saint Therese of the Child Jesus. When she wrote in her biography, “The History of a Soul,” her memories of the Sundays, the most beautiful day, she wrote, were the Sundays because it was the day of the Lord. And all went to Mass, to the Holy Mass in those times. And the Mass was celebrated in Latin in those times, in the 19th century.
But when the priest started to preach, she was very attentive. Her father, Saint Louis Martin, already canonized, was very touched by the homilies of the priest. He oftentimes was weeping, crying, and she was looking upon her father and was so attentive, and she never forgets the active participation of her father in liturgy, even though they did not understand Latin, but they very much actively participated in liturgy, even to be moved to tears.
So today, oftentimes we hear about active participation in liturgy by the lay people, but I would wonder if they are moved to tears when they participate actively, or is it more about action? True active participation is to be touched by God, by the grace in your soul, and this the Catholic family is the original place of the experience of the beauty of the Catholic faith. The Catholic family represents the first bulwark against the current Great Apostasy.
The two most efficient weapons against the modern apostasy, outside and inside the church, are the purity and integrity of faith and the purity of a chaste life. According to your state of life, you have to observe chastity. The admonition which Saint Louis the Ninth, King of France, left to his son, remains always valid. I quote, he wrote, “My dearest son, my first instruction is that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength. Without this, there is no salvation. Keep yourself, my son, from everything that you know displeases God, that is to say, keep you from every mortal sin. You should permit yourself to be tormented by every kind of martyrdom before you would allow yourself to commit a mortal sin. Work to remove all sin from your land, particularly blasphemies and heresies.”
So this was the testament of the saint King Louis to his son. Once, a member of an anti-Christian movement, who later converted to the Catholic faith, said to Father Mateo Crawley, the apostle of the enthronement of the Sacred Heart, the following witness. “We have only one goal in mind,” this anti-Christian movement, “that is to de-Christianize the family. We gladly leave the Catholics the churches, the buildings, the chapels, the cathedrals. For us, it is enough to have the family in order to corrupt society. If we have control over the family, our victory over the church is guaranteed.” This was a testimony of this converted member of an anti-Christian movement, which he gave to this priest. And so, through true Catholic families, and desirably large families, we will strengthen the church of our days with the beauty of the Catholic faith. From that faith will come out new Catholic fathers, mothers, and from them, there will come out a new generation of zealous priests, and also bishops, who will be ready to give their lives for Christ and for the salvation of souls.
Christianity was born out of the family, the Holy Family, so that the family may be born again through Christianity. The first fruit of the redemption is the Holy Family, just as the first blessing of the creator was given to the family already in paradise. Indeed, what the current world and the church mostly need are true Catholic families, the original places of the beauty of the Catholic faith. So, as your bishop asked me to share something of my experience of their life, I was born in the Soviet Union, in the Kyrgyzstan Republic. It is on the border with China, in a German family, a very Catholic family. My ancestors and my parents grew up in German villages close to the town of Odessa in the Ukraine, in the actual Ukraine, on the Black Sea shore. There were a lot of German villages, completely German, separated from others, and even they were separated according to whether they were Catholics or Lutherans. And they came originally, my ancestors, from the Alsace-Lorraine region. Germans from this region in the beginning of the 19th century, there was a migration there, and thanks be to God, they kept the Catholic faith. They had their own priests and churches in these villages. And after the war, Stalin deported all these people to different places. But already before the war, Stalin started a terror, a persecution of his own people. I mean, you know that even today, Russia acknowledges that under Stalin, Stalin killed his own people, not other people. 20 million, 20 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union, of course, of different nations.
This is greater than the Holocaust, and no one speaks about this, but this is true. My grandfather, from my father’s side, was a victim of this terror in 1937, and it was completely arbitrary. When someone had some land, and my grandfather had some land, and was religious, was a good Catholic, and had possessions, he was already condemned to death. This was already… even my grandfather was ready to give away the land. No, he was already on the list to be killed. And so, when he was only 27 years old, a young man, and my father was a little child, he was killed.
My grandmother was 25. He was taken away in the night with other men, and they were shot down and killed. And so my grandmother remained a widow at 25 years, with two little children. And she lived 74 years as a widow, until she was 99. I could bury her in Germany when she was 99. Thanks be to God, my grandmother kept the Catholic faith very strong.
After the murder of my grandfather, the police came to check the house. In those times, it was a very furious atheism period, so there could not be any signs of Christianity. It was then forbidden, even in the houses. But my grandmother had a lot of sacred pictures on the walls. She was very pious. The police came in and saw all these beautiful holy pictures, and they said, “This is forbidden. We are living in a time when you have to take these pictures from the wall.” And my grandmother refused, “No, I will not do this.” And then the policeman himself went to the wall and wanted to take them off himself. And in this moment, my grandmother shouted at him, “You have not put the picture here, and you have no right to take this away.”
And he was shocked, because in those terror times, all people were afraid of the police, because they could shoot them to death. And in this moment, my grandmother had a supernatural courage. She was usually a very modest, calm, and timid lady, but in this moment, she had extraordinary courage. She shouted to the police, and he was shocked and did nothing and went away, and they left her, and no one touched her. I consider this a miracle, a protection of God. And then, after some time, the communists made a kolkhoz system there, where all the people had to work on Sunday in the field, and my grandmother refused, “No, I have a lot of work in the field. Sunday, it is the day of the Lord.” And the chief of this political community there ordered her, “You have to work there.”
And then my grandmother answered him, “You can kill me. I will not work on Sundays.” And they left her in peace, and no one touched her. So it is a miracle. I mean that God protects them. And I am so grateful that I received the Catholic faith as if it were my mother’s milk. Both of my grandparents and great-grandparents were profoundly pious. I know them, and then my parents also both. And this is for me the greatest gift, which I consider in my life, that I got the Catholic faith with my mother’s milk and was educated in the family Catholic faith. I consider this greater than the priesthood and the episcopacy, the Catholic faith, the pure Catholic faith, which I received as a child. Every day I thank God for this. And every day I am becoming older, I recognize more the importance of the Catholic faith, of the pure Catholic faith.
So my mother was the first catechist for us. We were four children. She was our catechist. She taught us the good old German catechism from the 19th century, but it is the same faith of the apostles. The same faith cannot change. The catechisms, no. And she was my teacher of First Holy Communion. And so when we lived in Kyrgyzstan, there were no priests, because most of the priests were imprisoned or exiled. And so we lived without priests. When I was born, I was the youngest child in the family. There were no priests, and nobody knew when a priest would come, maybe in one year or in two years. It was only occasionally. And so when I was born, my mother decided to baptize me. She could not wait any time without baptizing the child. And so she took a German prayer book where the baptism rite was written. She took water. I was seven days old, one week old, and my father was in the presence. She started the ceremony of baptism, baptizing me with water. And when she finished, she looked upon my father and asked him, “Did I do this correctly?” And he answered, “I don’t know.” And then she said, “Well, I will repeat it if you don’t know.” And so she repeated a second time, baptized me, and then she was sure that I was baptized.
After six months, there came, occasionally, a clandestine priest from Lithuania, a Jesuit priest. It was completely secret, and there were a lot of Germans in this part of the town. And he said to the German mothers, “All the children who were not baptized by priests, you have to bring to me. I don’t trust the baptisms of the laity.” And so my mother brought me to him, and he baptized me the third time. So I’m three times baptized.
I have no doubts about the validity of my baptism, at least. One of the most beautiful memories of my childhood in Kyrgyzstan was the Sundays. We had no place, and we could not gather with other people. It was forbidden. So my parents and we children met on Sunday morning, for our Sunday worship. I mean, in the family, it was really a domestic church. I experienced this domestic church. We knelt. We closed the doors and the windows. And then we knelt down all together, father, mother, and we four children, and started to pray the rosary, the litany. And then we made a spiritual communion. My mother said, “Now we will unite ourselves with a Mass which is maybe now celebrated in one part of the world,” and asked Our Lord to come to us spiritually. We received so many graces with this. Even though we lived a couple of years without priests, we kept the truth of the faith, the beauty of the faith. We received graces through the spiritual communions. We made contrition, an act of contrition, to repent our sins.
You know that now there is unfortunately, a process is going on to introduce into the Catholic Church the ordination of married men. There will probably be a synod on the Amazonia next year. Because they are, there is a shortage of priests to ordain; there are some exceptional cases, some married priests. But it is a completely wrong decision. We kept our faith in the Soviet Union, living many years without priests, but we kept the faith. And then when the priest came, once a year or every second year, it was a feast, really. I consider the arguments to introduce married priesthood to be completely without foundation. It is contrary to the entire apostolic tradition. Apostolic tradition, it is not only Canon Law. It is apostolic tradition. The church has no right, in my opinion, to change this, even though it is not a dogma of faith, but it is apostolic tradition. It is not pure Canon Law. In my opinion, the Pope has no authority to change the celibacy of the priesthood. I hope that the Lord will not permit this, but I only mention this because we had no priests there.
In another memory, it the Christmas. On Christmas Day, we had to work to go to school. It was an atheist country. But on the eve of Christmas, my parents gathered the Germans in our house and held a worship, or praying and singing. And so to celebrate Christmas. It was forbidden, but across the road, there lived the chief of police of the city, a Russian, and he was the best friend of our family. Yes, we loved him so much. We considered him our uncle. He was a good friend of my father and my mother. His name was Anatoli.
On the eve of Christmas, my father said to him, “You know, we are Catholics. We have to celebrate Christmas tonight. So we have to gather people and make a celebration.” And he said to my father, “So I will guarantee you this night, they will not come. No policeman to you. I will guarantee this.” And so he protected us so that we could celebrate Christmas in the night, even illegally, Christmas. This was a beautiful memory of my childhood. I remember these Christmas nights. The house was crowded, and we were praying, all in the German language, of course, and singing the beautiful German Christmas songs.
Then we moved from Kyrgyzstan, from Central Asia, to Estonia, in the Baltic States, in order to better emigrate to Germany. This was the plan of my father. When we came to Estonia, the first thing my parents did was to travel all around Estonia to seek a church. And they found a church, a Catholic church, an old one. This church was still open. The government allowed this, and there was a priest. This was more or less 70 miles from our town, where they lived in Estonia. And when they came home, they said to us children, “Oh, children, we found a church, a Catholic church,” and imagined, “so close, only 70 miles, beautiful, so close.”
We were so happy to have a church so close, 70 miles only. And then we traveled on Sundays to Mass. These journeys we traveled by train to Sunday Mass were also one of the most beautiful memories of my childhood. And there I received my first Holy Communion in this church. There was a holy priest, a Capuchin priest from Latvia. A holy man. Since our family had to travel the farthest distance, all the other families were close to the church, and we had to wait four hours in the railway station for the next train after Mass. We could go to his apartment, a little room only, and spend some hours there, just our family. There was the church, and there was the house, and a little way to the house where the priest had his room.
After Mass, we always went there. I remember once, since I was the youngest child, I went with my mother. I was maybe nine or ten years old. I was so impressed by this priest, who radiated holiness for me. He was before he was in a concentration camp and in prison, so he was a holy man. I was so impressed as a boy by this man that he radiated a holiness for me. At this age of nine or ten, I did not yet have the idea or the desire to become a priest, but this man impressed me. I was walking with my mother, and suddenly I stopped and asked, only out of curiosity, “Mother, how can one become a priest?” And then my mother stopped. We always spoke in German together. She stopped and said to me these words, “In order to become a priest, it is necessary that God calls.”
I did not understand, “God calls.” I looked at the heavens, and I was thinking that now a voice would come to my ear to call me, in my childish mind. And there came no voice from heaven. It was so strange for me. “God has to call.” I did not understand this, and I never asked my mother or any other person how to become a priest. But I became a priest. I spoke with no one in my life about how to become a priest. But then, when we moved to Germany by a miracle of Our Lady, on the 13th of October, Fatima day, in 1973, we came to Germany.
In the Soviet Union, the children were not permitted to be altar boys, to serve Mass; only adult persons could serve. And so I could not serve Mass because it was forbidden. And when we came to Germany, I started to serve Mass. I was twelve and a half years old, and after my first serving the Mass, I was feeling in my soul, “I have to become a priest.” In this moment, before my eyes, was this holy priest. It was not a vision, but it was a very living experience. I had before my eyes this holy priest, his faith. And then I had the conviction, from this moment, “I have to become a priest.” Therefore, I did not need to speak with anyone about how to become a priest, because I had the conviction of my soul. And this priest was always before my eyes, this holy priest, Father Janis Pavlovskis.
When we said farewell to him to go to Germany, he told us these words. I simply repeat this. I will not scandalize any one of you or those who will hear him. He told us this, “When you come to Germany, pay attention. There are some churches where Holy Communion is given on the hand. Please, do not go to these churches.” And my mother and my father, and we heard this for the first time in our lives. The reaction of my parents was “Horrible! It is impossible to take our Lord in hand.” Even I, as a child, for me it so strange because I was educated with such reverence as a child. To the Holy Communion host, it was for me, as a child, that “This is my God, really.” So I was, by my mother, taught me and this holy priest, “It is Jesus, there it is God. So I cannot take this as common food.”
When we came to Germany, in a little Catholic town with three Catholic churches, we went the first Sunday to the Mass, and we observed with horror that all people took already, in those times, the Communion in hand. And very quickly, the Communion was given in a row, I mean, in a queue, like in a cafeteria. Very quickly. We were shocked. When we went and came home, my mother said, “We will never go to this church.” No, the next church, the same situation. And then only one church was left, and we went on the third Sunday there. And the same situation. When we came home, my mother looked upon us children and started to weep. She said, “Oh, my children, I cannot understand how one can treat our Lord in this manner.” And she left.
This experience was so deep for me, and this is the remote cause, the reason why I wrote these two books about Holy Communion. Maybe one of you knows these books, “Dominus Est” and “Corpus Christi.” This experience, the words of my holy parish priest in Estonia, and this experience, which we had, but nevertheless, we kept the faith. We did not allow ourselves to be contaminated with this liberal staff when we came. And with the grace of God, we continued, our family to give witness to the Catholic faith. And we always received kneeling on the tongue. We were the only family in the entire church. But the parish priests gave us because we came from a persecuted church, from the clandestine church, they could not humiliate us and refuse us Communion kneeling and on the tongue. So we had some privilege, some protection.
Well, and so my dear brothers and sisters, I would like to encourage all of you to be faithful to the Catholic Church, to the true catechism, to the deep veneration of our Lord in Holy Communion, and to do all what we can, the priests and others, the catechists, to prepare good, young families, large families, and this is the greatest power of the renewal of the church. Thank you for your attention.