Dilexisti justitiam et odisti iniquitatem;
propterea unxit te Deus, Deus tuus,
oleo lætitiæ præ consortibus tuis.

Sal 44, 8

LAST Sunday, the second Sunday of Passiontide or Palm Sunday, the Holy Church celebrated Our Lord Jesus Christ as the King and Messiah whom God promised to send His people. The triumphal entry of Christ departed from the priestly city of Bethpage at the foot of the Mount of Olives and entered the Holy City: Attollite portas, principes, vestras, et elevamini, portae æternales, et introibit rex gloriæ. Quis est iste rex gloriæ? Dominus fortis et potens, Dominus potens in prælio (Ps 23: 7-8).

The coronation of the Redeemer at the foot of the Mount of Olives and His solemn entry into Jerusalem going to the very threshold of the Temple fulfill the ancient rites through which David sought to anoint in figura his son Solomon as King, Priest, and Prophet: the Lord’s Anointed, which in Greek is rendered Χριστός as a translation of the Hebrew term Mashíach or Messiah. Our Lord is, therefore, the Christ: the one true King, Priest, and Prophet. To Him belongs the triplex munus—that is, the three inseparable aspects of the salvific mission of Jesus Christ.

His Kingship belongs to Him by right, for He is True God and True Man, by virtue of the hypostatic union of His divine and human natures in the Person of the Incarnate Word. His Supreme High Priesthood is exercised in His dual capacity of Priest and Victim, upon the Altar of the Cross. His role as Prophet consists in His perfect and definitive revelation of the Mystery of God, in His authoritative proclamation of saving Truth, in His teaching with divine authority, and in His proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven, in fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament.

And today, with special solemnity of rites, Holy Church consecrates the Chrism with which Kings and Bishops are consecrated, and the Holy Oils by which every Christian—in Baptism and Confirmation—becomes, in some measure, a king, a priest, and a prophet. Yet, even if the “common priesthood” of the faithful was deceitfully presented by Vatican II almost as a substitute for the ministerial Priesthood – in order to appease heretics and progressively deprive the Church of her Ministers by replacing them with delegates of the people – we cannot, however, forget that, from the very Baptismal Font, each of us is called to be an elect race, a royal priesthood (1 Pt 2:9), an heir of God and a co-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17), as the Preface for the Consecration of the Sacred Chrism reminds us: ut sit his, qui renati fuerint ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto, chrisma salutis, eosque æternæ vitæ participes et cælestis gloriæ facias esse consortes—that it may be, for those who are reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, the chrism of salvation, and that You may make them sharers in eternal life and partners in heavenly glory.

Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis (Jn 1:14): the Incarnation of the Father’s Eternal Word who becomes flesh restores in Christ the order shattered by the sin of Adam, manifesting Our Lord as Universal King not only in Heaven but also on earth. All who acknowledge Him as the Divine Messiah and Savior are thus readmitted to the glory of Heaven. The sin of the progenitor of humanity was the cause of the ruin of all mankind; the Sacrifice of the New Adam by virtue of the Incarnation is the true immolation of the God-Man on behalf of all men, an offering most pleasing to the Divine Majesty and, for this reason, truly redemptive. And it is for this very reason that the Antichrist, in order to usurp the true Christ’s Lordship, must, above all, deny that He is the Messiah and King. The servants of the Antichrist labor toward the erasure of Our Lord Jesus Christ, toward the removal of every symbol that evokes Him, and toward the abrogation of every law that acknowledges Him as Supreme Legislator. This takes place in civil society no less than in religious society, for Christ is both King and High Priest. This erasure is served by liberal democracy within nations, and by synodality within the Catholic Church.

Yet there is no Priesthood—either ordained or of the laity—without a Victim, modeled upon the one, most perfect Sacrifice of our Most Holy Savior. For this reason, we are anointed with Sacred Chrism in Baptism and in Confirmation: to unite ourselves to the Sacrifice of Our Lord, completing in our own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, for the sake of His Body, which is the Church (Col 1:24). Salve, ara; salve, victima, de passionis gloria, qua vita mortem pertulit et morte vitam reddidit. Hail, Altar; hail, Victim, through the glory of the Passion, through which Life endured death and, through death, restored life (Hymn Vexilla Regis).

The Priesthood of Our Lord, sacramentally perpetuated through Holy Orders, continues uninterrupted throughout the centuries thanks to the Apostolic Succession of the Bishops. Each of them, if validly consecrated, can be certain of tracing his lineage back to one of the Apostles who received the fullness of Holy Orders from the hands of Our Lord Himself. For this reason, it is vital that Apostolic Succession be preserved whole and intact, for it is the Episcopate that safeguards the Priesthood for the sanctification of souls through the Sacraments. In keeping with the legacy of its Founder, the venerated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Society of St. Pius X will confer episcopal Consecration upon several candidates this coming July 1^st, even though the Holy See has not granted the Apostolic Mandate. This courageous decision can only be commended, for it stands in defense of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Mass, and the Catholic Priesthood. We, too, in this Community here in Viterbo, are fighting this same battle against these same enemies. We, too, sense this same urgency; we have responded to it, and we will continue to do so. We, too, like Archbishop Lefebvre, have been unjustly excommunicated for our duty to remain faithful to the Church, to the Priesthood, and to the Mass. For us, too, the duty is imperative: to ensure the continuity of our work, just as Archbishop Lefebvre ensured the continuity of his own.

The dimension of the Priesthood is, first and foremost, sacrificial: no one is exempted from bearing the cross that Providence assigns to him, a cross for which Grace ensures the aid of the Divine Cyrenian. And it is evident that if this duty holds true for all times, it does so all the more when persecution rages, when recourse is had to false witnesses, when the mob is incited, and when new, ferocious cries of Crucifige ring out. The hatred of Christ’s enemies is the very same hatred that stirred those who realized that the Messiah entering Jerusalem was not a political leader of theirs, one who would foment revolt against the Roman invaders and consolidate their power, but rather a King riding upon a donkey, girding Himself with a Crown of thorns, and reigning from the Cross, ut qui in ligno vincebat, in ligno quoque vinceretur (Preface of the Passion), so that he who seemed to triumph over Christ by having Him condemned to the most dishonorable of torments might, in truth, be vanquished precisely by the Cross: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (1 Cor 1:23). Impleta sunt quæ concinit David fideli carmine, dicendo nationibus: regnavit a ligno Deus. The words of David are fulfilled, who declared to the nations, in true prophecy: God reigns from the Tree. (Hymn: Vexilla Regis).

In these hours of darkness, we live in anticipation of witnessing the final, triumphant entry of the One True Messiah at the end of time, when the world shall dissolve in favilla. On that occasion, too, it will be the children and the simple folk who welcome the Lord with Hosannas and palm branches, while the mighty of the earth and the Sanhedrin look on in despair at the ruin of the Antichrist, in whom they had placed their self-serving hopes. Our Lord shall return to reclaim universal and public possession of His Regal, Priestly, and Prophetic authority. Upon the foreheads of all those regenerated in the Blood of the Lamb, the Cross marked with the Sacred Chrism shall shine forth: the oil that enables the wrestler to slip free from the adversary’s grasp.

Pange, lingua, gloriosi lauream certaminis
et super crucis trophæo dic triumphum nobilem,
qualiter Redemptor orbis immolatus vicerit.

Sing, O my tongue, of the struggle of the glorious combat,
and upon the trophy of the Cross, proclaim the noble triumph:
how the Redeemer of the world—though immolated—achieved the victory. 

Awaiting the Day of Judgment — dum tempus est — we must prove ourselves worthy soldiers of Christ. We must train ourselves to fight with spiritual weapons, and, with the help of Grace, we must also wage the bonum certamen, the good fight, beneath the banners of that Divine King. May the blessed Cross, which we bear imprinted upon us, shine forth as a promise of glory with Christ, and not as a mark of eternal condemnation for having rendered ourselves unworthy of it. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Viterbo, 2 April MMXXVI
Feria V Majoris Hebdomadæ,
in Cœna Domini