Show notes
It's the Feast of St Bartholomew, 2nd Class, with the color of Red. In this episode: the meditation: "The Leprosy Of Sin", today's news from the Church: "Bishop de Castro-Mayer's Response to the Holy See's Secret Inquiry Into the Mass", a preview of the Sermon: "The Truth About Our Dark Side", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org
Sources Used Today:
- "The Leprosy Of Sin" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption
- "Bishop de Castro-Mayer's Response to the Holy See's Secret Inquiry Into the Mass" (FSSPX.news)
- "The Truth About Our Dark Side" (SSPX Sermons)
- The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:
Saint Émilie de Vialar was the kind of woman who saw suffering and had a hard time simply walking past it.
She was born in 1797 in Gaillac, in southern France, into a wealthy family. Her mother died when Émilie was young, and as she grew older, her relationship with her father became difficult. He expected a fairly conventional future for his daughter.
Émilie had other plans.
She began quietly helping poor families, teaching children, visiting the sick, and using whatever money she could spare for people who needed it. Then, in her thirties, she inherited a substantial fortune from her grandfather.
Most people would call that financial security.
Émilie treated it like startup money.
In 1832, she bought a house and gathered several women around her. Together they founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition, named for the Gospel scene in which the angel appears to Saint Joseph and tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife.
The congregation took off remarkably quickly.
Within a few years, Émilie was asked to send sisters to Algeria. She went herself. The sisters opened schools, cared for the sick, and worked among people of different languages, cultures, and religions. Soon new requests began arriving from other places.
And Émilie kept saying yes.
Her sisters eventually established communities throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East, including Tunisia, Malta, Cyprus, Lebanon, Palestine, and Greece.
Remember, this was the 1800s.
Every new foundation meant ships, long journeys, unfamiliar languages, disease, unreliable communication, and political instability. There was no easy way home if something went wrong.
And plenty went wrong.
Émilie faced financial problems, opposition from government officials, disputes with Church authorities, and painful conflicts surrounding some of the communities she had founded. At one point, she even lost control of houses established through her own money and work.
She kept going.
That's probably the most impressive thing about her story.
Émilie wasn't successful because everything worked out smoothly. She was successful because setbacks never convinced her that God had stopped asking her to serve.
By the time she died in Marseille in 1856, she had helped establish dozens of houses in only twenty-four years. The congregation she began in one French home had already become international.
And there's something fitting about Saint Joseph being at the center of it all. Joseph's own life repeatedly involved God interrupting his plans and telling him to go somewhere unexpected.
Émilie understood that kind of vocation very well.
Today, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition continue the work she began in schools, hospitals, and missions around the world.
Saint Émilie de Vialar, courageous missionary and friend of the poor, pray for us.
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What is the SSPX Podcast?
The SSPX Podcast is produced by Angelus Press, which has as its mission the fortification of traditional Catholics so that they can defend the Faith, and reaching out to those who have not yet found Tradition.
What is the SSPX?
The main goal of the Society of Saint Pius X is to preserve the Catholic Faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues, especially through the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its primary means of bringing this life of grace to souls.
Although the traditional Latin Mass is the most visible and public expression of the work of the Society, we are committed to defending Catholic Tradition in its entirety: all of Catholic doctrine and morals as the Church has always defended them. What people need is the Catholic Faith, without compromise, with all the truth and beauty which accompanies it.
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