Interview with Fr. Jacques Emily, SSPX
Dear Father, would you tell us about your apostolate in the US?
It was Fr. Arnauld Rostand, who was then our District Superior, who appointed me Prior of St. John Vianney Priory, as well as Chaplain of our Society Sisters at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Browerville, in August of 2014. After having spent nine years at the Retreat House in Los Gatos, California, preaching retreats, this appointment came to me as a big surprise. Nevertheless, I received it with joyful gratitude, and since then, I sincerely thank God for the tremendous grace He has granted me by this nomination.
Could you describe your role of Chaplain to the Novitiate?
To celebrate the daily Mass for the Sisters, hear their confessions, teach classes to the novices, and provide spiritual conferences and recollections to the professed are the main functions of the chaplain. Thus, it is a great consolation for a priest to be able, by his ministry, to provide for these chosen souls the graces and blessings that Our Blessed Lord wants to infuse into the hearts of His Spouses!
This is indeed the beautiful mission of the Chaplain, which consists of being the special intermediary between the Divine Spouse and these privileged souls who, by their vows, espouse the Son of God as their own!
What a sublime mission for a priest to be called for this apostolate! By this ministry, the chaplain intends to help these spouses of Christ to grow in their union with Christ so that by the strength of their intimacy with Him they may more profusely diffuse the graces of their Divine Spouse upon the Church and the souls. It is thus, in the role of intermediary between the Divine Spouse and His religious spouses that the Chaplain exercises a certain spiritual paternity, which has been granted by Christ Himself.
What a responsibility, but also what a blessed consolation, to become a humble instrument of God to contribute to the sanctification of the spouses of Christ and thus, by way of consequence, to the sanctification of so many souls! This is the wonderful and consoling apostolate of a Chaplain of religious sisters, for which I am most grateful to God for having called on me for this endeavor at the conclusion of my priestly life.
It seems, by this description of your task as Chaplain, that you exercise a kind of spiritual fatherhood towards the sisters. Can you explain to what limit this spiritual paternity extends?
Every priest is a father of souls, no matter how specific or broad the ministry in which he labors. So, in this sense, the Chaplain of a religious community exercises a certain paternity towards the sisters as we just explained, but not in the sense that he becomes the spiritual director of the sisters. The ministry of the spiritual direction of the sisters belongs exclusively to the Mistress of Novices.
Nevertheless, teaching spirituality, giving spiritual conferences, preaching recollections, and exercising the ministry of confession, definitively invest the Chaplain with a certain fatherly influence over the spiritual formation of these elite souls. The Chaplain must never forget, however, that these religious souls belong exclusively to no one else other than Jesus Christ Himself, as His own and chosen spouses. So, the fatherly influence of the Chaplain over the formation of sisters is entirely dependent upon Jesus Christ: it comes from Jesus Christ and leads these consecrated souls to Him.
This is certainly a serious responsibility for the Chaplain, but it is also for him a tremendous consolation! Indeed, the Chaplain knows, perhaps more than anyone else, the spiritual impact that the sisters have on the Church and the world. He recognizes very well the hidden but crucial influence that they have on the Heart of Jesus, through their prayers and sacrifices, for the sanctification and salvation of souls. And this is true not only for the laity but even more so for the sanctification of priests, which is one of the most beneficial and blessed purposes of their vocation.
The Chaplain is thus, by his role as intermediary between Jesus Christ and the sisters, at the heart of this apostolate of the contemplative souls for the Church and salvation of souls. The more the Chaplain can help the sisters to sanctify themselves, the closer their union with Christ becomes, and thus, the greater and more abundant the graces they obtain for the Church and so many souls!
How many souls have been and will be saved, thanks and in proportion to the degree of sanctity of our sisters? Only in heaven will we know the tremendous work that they did for the salvation of so many souls and of so many priests. Who can tell, for instance, how many thousands of souls and priests have been saved by St. Therese of the Infant Jesus?
We remember how Archbishop Lefevre had clearly understood the efficacy of the Contemplative Life to support the apostolic work of the missionaries. As a result, when he was in Africa, he consistently summoned Carmelites or contemplative congregations to come and settle near the new foundations of the missionary Fathers.
How does your apostolate with the sisters and your understanding of the necessity of their mission shape your own spiritual life and orientation?
Understanding the solemnity of the vocation to which the sisters are called, the Chaplain realizes that his own role is consequently a very sacred one. Upon the sanctity of the sisters depends the salvation of their own souls, yes, but also of countless others. Their degree of holiness will determine the perfection in which they accomplish their vocation. Thus, the Chaplain realizes that, so closely involved in the spiritual missionary work of the sisters as he is, he himself must focus on his own sanctification if he is to lead them in holiness. It is a key motivation to realize that the more our sisters grow in holiness, the more souls will be saved, the more graces the priests will receive for their own sanctification, and finally, the more families will be sanctified. The spiritual relationship between sisters and priest is truly a symbiotic one—the sisters indeed need the priests in order to avail themselves of the graces from Jesus Christ by the sacraments to become saints, but the priests rely on the prayers and sacrifices of the sisters for their ministry and their own sanctification.
What are the challenges of your work? The joys?
This sublime mission of our sisters for the Church, for the sanctification of priests and families and for the salvation of souls is precisely the real challenge! How unworthy the Chaplain feels to be chosen for such a mission! Keenly aware of his role in the salvation of so many souls through his cooperation with the work of sanctification of the sisters, the Chaplain is confronted by his own unworthiness and the enormity of the task he is called to accomplish. This allows the Chaplain to recognize, with great humility, in Whom he must place all his hopeful expectations, in nothing else but on the grace of Jesus Christ, that will support him to accomplish the task entrusted to him.
But, if this mission is so challenging, at the same time it is the source of great consolation and joy to think that, by this ministry, the Chaplain can contribute to the spiritual formation of these warriors of Christ. They are indeed critical warriors, even though serving in the shadows, they are far from being useless soldiers, as men of little Faith might believe. Quite the opposite, they are actually fighting on the front line for the victory of Christ the King over his enemies.
You mention the misconception of the sisters occupying a place in the shadow “at the back of Christ’s army”; this is perhaps due to their seeming material inactivity. The secular mindset would assign more value to physical work with external results, than to spiritual labors, and would claim that these women are wasting their talents, stifling their potential, and hiding themselves away to no purpose. Can you comment further on this?
In the words of Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivre, “action is defined above all by the quality of what comes of it” (The Mass of Saint Pius V, p. 5). What can be of higher quality than the salvation of souls for the glory of God? This is something the world can never understand. The greatest activity on earth takes place hidden in the tabernacle. From His state of seeming inactivity, the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus produces the infinite intensity of the action of Grace. Were the world to lose the Eucharist, it would fall apart. As St. Padre Pio said: “The earth could exist more easily without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”
Thus, it is in imitation of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, hidden in the Blessed Sacrament, that the sisters hide themselves away in the “tabernacle” of their convent, there to unite themselves to His continual activity. With the Sorrowful Mother at the foot of the cross, they participate in her hidden but crucial role of Co-Redemptrix. By their prayers and penances, they draw from the Eucharist, in union with Mary, those countless graces which God has determined to give only as a result of being asked.
If it is by Her presence at the foot of the Cross that Mary became the Mother of the elect, it is also by their oblation and their presence at the foot of the altar that our Sisters participate in the spiritual maternity of Mary and in her role as Co-Redemptrix.
This is the great vocation of our sisters: to continue what the Blessed Virgin, Co-Redemptrix, did on Calvary and to participate in her role as Mediatrix of All Grace in heaven.
Without the spiritual support from these seemingly inactive women who are “wasting their talents in the convent,” countless graces would be lost, active ministry would fail, and souls would not be saved. How many priests owe their vocation to their “little sisters” in the convent who continually support them with their prayers and sacrifices? St. Therese of the Infant Jesus has been given the title of Patroness of the Missions precisely because of her dedication to the spiritual support of missionary priests in foreign lands, all accomplished from her tiny cloister in France.
Just as the heart is the life-support of the body, just as the mother is the spiritual and emotional heart of the home, just as the nurse is the comfort and support of the patient, just as Mary was the hidden support and love of Jesus, just as the Eucharist is the hidden Life of the Church, so the sisters are to the ministry of the priests, the conversion of sinners, the support of families, the salvation of souls. These are indeed the marvelous and precious fruits of the hidden activity of our sisters that the world cannot understand!
This vision and understanding of the vocation of the Sisters of the Society of St. Pius X highlights the sublime mission to which these souls have been called. Could you give a word of encouragement to the young ladies who are considering a religious vocation?
Archbishop Lefebvre defines the vocation of our Sisters with these words:
And so you, helpers of the priests, not only with your hands but also with your souls and minds—helpers of the priesthood, of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice… for the extension of His kingship, the extension of his love—you should unite yourselves in a very special way to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Like Her, close to Her divine Son, you will share His sufferings and also contribute to the redemption of souls insofar as you are able to do so.
Unfortunately, this beautiful vocation of our Sisters of the Society is not sufficiently known and understood among our faithful and young ladies. And yet, the key role of our Sisters in this crisis of the Church, working as auxiliary to the priesthood for the restoration of all things in Christ, is of essential importance.
The spirituality and the apostolate of our Sisters deserve to be more widely known and promoted. Young ladies who still have enthusiasm for great causes, such as the defense of the Church and the salvation of souls, need to be educated and made aware of the grandeur of the vocation of our Sisters of the Society. They need to be enkindled with the fire of divine love which has animated these great saints like St. Joan of Arc, St. Therese, St. Bernadette and so many others, that they may, in their own turn, make this worthy sacrifice by generously offering their lives under the patronage and in the imitation of Our Lady of Compassion!